Sick Building Syndrome: Healing Health Facilities

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Locating the air intakes at these courtyards provides other advantages as well. With Texas's sweltering summer days, taking air in from the roof, as is typically done, would mean filling the building with super-heated air. Instead, the roof is equipped with heat-recovery units located at the upper elevation of the courtyards, above a series of stacked air handlers, which are distributed on each floor. Rather than utilizing a single, consolidated, rooftop air-handling unit—which can be as large as a transit bus and typically pushes air down through shafts over long distances—Karlsberger "right-sized" these individual air handlers for specific zones of the hospital, each having varying needs. "While some parts of a hospital are like an office building," Kuspan explains, "other parts, such as the operating rooms, have very stringent air requirements." By reducing the distance air travels through ducts, the chances of picking up dirt and other particles along the way were lessened, and maintenance made easier. The setup was also well-suited for establishing smoke zones, a fire-safety requirement for hospitals.

At the same time that plans for Dell were being developed, the local utility, Austin Energy—noted for being among the greenest public utilities in the country—was looking for projects in which to locate cogeneration plants. With a $1 million grant from the Department of Energy, Dell and Austin Energy established an on-site combined cooling heating power (CCHP) plant that utilizes state-of-the-art natural-gas-fired turbines. The CCHP is 75 percent more efficient and releases fewer carbon dioxide emissions than burning coal at a distant power plant.

Other low-polluting elements were used in the hospital's interiors. These include low-VOC paints and adhesives and linoleum flooring, which requires only soap and water cleanup rather than the continuous waxing and stripping that is often done to sheet vinyl and vinyl composition tile, the most common hospital floor finishes. Even the pest control is chemical free. "I've never walked into a new building before that didn't have that new-building smell," says Kuspan. "There's no odor whatsoever because of the materials we used."

Measures to improve IAQ were only part of Karlsberger's overall effort to make Dell among the most sustainable and efficient hospitals in the country. The new building was designed as the first acute-care facility to achieve platinum-level LEED certification. "Our business is helping kids get and stay healthy," says Robert Bonar, Dell's president and C.E.O. "How could we look the public in the eye and tell them such if we knew that we had just filled the building with materials that are off-gassing formaldehyde and other harmful products? Building healthy, sustainable buildings is the right thing to do for our kids who come here for care."

Architects at Perkins+Will had that same mindset when they designed a new 54,000-square-foot facility for New York Foundling. The primary mandate of the agency, founded as a home for abandoned children in 1869, is to ensure the health and well-being of the children of New York City. In their new mixed-use building, scheduled to break ground this summer, a charter school will share space with an outpatient clinic for neighborhood children and their families. "The project presents unique opportunities for health care design, in particular with socially based, initiative-driven organizations like Foundling," says Peter Syrett, AIA, Perkins+Will associate principal and designer. "The building really should be a manifestation of its values and role in the community, so we approached it as a design team that way."