Executive Summary

The Community Hospital project, located in Central Pennsylvania, is a six (6) story addition to an existing three (3) story section of the current hospital that was selected for analysis as part of an Architectural Engineering Senior Capstone Thesis.  The Senior Capstone Thesis objective is to take use the knowledge and experiences acquired over the past four (4) years in the Architectural Engineering program and to demonstrate these skills through extensive construction driven research and analysis. 

The Community Hospital overbuild is a 155,000 square foot addition to the existing hospital that is currently under construction to improve patient and hospital facilities.  Theis addition cost is approximately $52 million dollars, creating 66 private patient rooms and additional space for when needed.  Once these rooms become available to the hospital, 71 semi-private rooms located throughout the building will be converted to private rooms.  This construction will provide additional office space, other medical uses, and the space for 80 new beds to meet future demands.  Project success is achieved through the collaboration of all parties including of the owner, architect, construction manager, engineers, and designers.

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Analysis 1: Prefabricated MEP Racks

The Community Hospital Addition is using the traditional method of stick-built installation for its interior trades.  This method requires numerous coordination meetings to ensure that no one trade is disrupting another.  It is through this analysis that the utilization of a prefabricated design could help reduce the coordination issues, as well as improve on the overall quality of the final product being produced.  From this analysis, it is recommended that the Addition incorporated prefabricated MEP Racks in the corridors of floors six through eight, resulting in both in how it produced a reduction in cost and schedule durations. 

Analysis 2: Prefabricated Headwalls

With patient health at the forefront of all decisions being made, and the traditional installation method of the various trades, the use of a prefabricated headwall was analyzed.  From this analysis is was found that by going with the prefabricated patient head wall design both time and money could be saved on the project.  Thus, it would be recommended that prefabricated headwalls be implemented on the Addition. 

Analysis 3: Full Prefabricated Exterior Wall

Currently, on the Community Hospital Addition, two different façade systems are being utilized.  The first is a traditional stick-built face brick system, and the second is a prefabricated EIFS panel.  This analysis investigates the utilization of one prefabricated system in place of the current methods.  Multiple systems were researched and analyzed to find the best system for the project.  This system was also mechanical and structurally analyzed to see its effect on the current project’s design.  Overall, it was discovered that the alternative system should not be implemented on the project due to the increased in construction costs. 

Analysis 4: Integration of Virtual Mock-Ups

On the Community Hospital Addition there was no use of BIM Implementation being done besides the coordination of systems (clash detection).  However, this project experienced many difficulties in overall budget and final design and due to these issues resulting in construction being halted for a periods of time.  This analysis looks at the potential integration of virtual mock-ups for design and constructability reviews.  Research and industry interviews were conducted to determine the benefits of these technologies and when they should be used most appropriate application.  This analysis found that virtual mock-ups are becoming increasingly popularity and are being integrated into the construction industry for design and construction reviews.  For the Addition and future Benchmark projects, it is recommended that they to incorporate virtual mock-ups into their projects.