When there’s a holistic design approach that marries the hospital’s architectural desires with MEP design requirements, LEED certification is possible.
That’s what happened at Northwestern Medicine’s Lake Forest Hospital, as described by Ken Griffin, Samantha Davidson and Elliot Weiss in “Mechanics of LEED” for Medical Construction & Design magazine. They shared lessons learned in designing sustainable hospitals, such as creating an energy model to be utilized for LEED certification and as a tool to analyze energy consumption, how to implement low-flow water fixtures in a healthcare setting, and addressing indoor air quality as it pertains to the mechanical systems.