"The University of California Irvine's new healthcare campus has a long list of innovative features, from its combined inpatient-outpatient surgical suite to its outdoor chemotherapy infusion terrace to an entire floor dedicated to staff only. The one thing it doesn't have is a gas line."
""Healthcare is just about as big of an energy hog as you can get," says Fabian Kremkus, a design principal at CO Architects. Room-sized MRI machines, medicine refrigerators, and commercial kitchens cranking out hospital food represent just a snapshot of the energy needs of a healthcare facility. At UCI Health, as the campus is known, feeding this energy demand with only electricity required nimble design."
"The project has been in the works since 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic was putting unusual scrutiny on the ways hospitals functioned. UCI Health's design was inevitably influenced by the pandemic, leading to an emphasis on flexibility and the ability to handle an influx of highly contagious patients should another pandemic occur. At the same time, the University of California system was plowing ahead with its own goal of achieving carbon neutrality in its buildings by 2025, which made electrification another priority."
UCI Health opened a 144-bed, multi-building campus in December that operates entirely on electricity and lacks any gas line. CO Architects and design-build partner Hensel Phelps designed the all-electric hospital, which claims to be the only hospital larger than 500,000 square feet to run solely on electricity. The facility's equipment and functions demand high energy, including MRIs, medicine refrigeration, and full kitchens. Pandemic-era planning since 2020 emphasized flexibility to manage contagious patient surges. The University of California system's carbon-neutrality-by-2025 goal made electrification a priority. Early design included gas systems due to limited commercially available equipment.
Read at Fast Company
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