Advocate Condell Medical Center was a 70-year old institution looking to change its image from a "rural hospital" to that of a regional medical center. After a year of master planning, it was determined the best location for the expansion was directly on top of the existing entryway. It houses:
- Main entrance with 3-story lobby and 26 ft. waterfall
- Level II trauma ED with 22 private treatment rooms, 3 major trauma rooms, and 3 ambulance bays
- ICU with 17 private rooms
- Surgical Services Unit with 12 surgical suites
- Radiology Department with MRI and PET scanners
- Life Maternity Center with 8 LDR and 3 nurseries
- Women’s Center & Spa – the first hospital-based spa in Illinois.
Challenges/Solutions |
The first major challenge was building over the existing entryway. An alternative entry path was used during construction. Another challenge was constructing entirely new departments without interrupting services. This was achieved by building new departments adjacent to the existing ones and then moving entire departments into the new spaces. The vacated space became "swing space". All of this was carefully planned and detailed during the master planning phase, requiring extensive crossover of systems.
Another major challenge was the hospital’s request to match the new addition to the existing floor-to-floor heights from the 1956 bed tower and 1980 addition. The 1956 building used through-wall air conditioning units that did not require overhead ductwork, resulting in very restrictive floor-to-floor heights between 11 and 12 feet. Since the 1980 addition representetd the majority of the existing useable square footage, the hospital deceided that building ramps between it and the new addition was not an option. The solution was to put the ducts on the outside in mechanical buttresses. The result was more duct shafts with smaller ducts penetrating the building from the outside. The ceiling space in the center of the building was then available for other systems. Elevator shafts, linen and trash chutes were also moved to the perimeter to allow maximum flexibility for the floor area. The newly designed exterior of the building presented the solution to a complex problem. This technical solution became one of the strong aestehetic features of the building.
The project included a new central utility plant with 1800-tons of chiller and 600 BHP of boiler capacity. Two 1000 kW emergency generators provide back-up power. A new 1500 gpm fire pump serves the entire facility.
Other design features include a double-ended electrical service entrance for redundancy and emergency power generation with life safety, critical, and equipment branches back feeding to two emergency generators; a large-scale security and video system; promxity based access control; duress systems; and additional lock-down alarms in the ED.