İnnovative structures help hospitals cut costs

Innovation can provoke resistance. When a new structural idea is proposed for a building as complex as a modern health care facility, it must satisfy the interests of all the design team members involved, fulfilling their needs for a range of concerns such as schedule, appearance, cost impacts, functionality and constructability.

Teamwork is required to make an innovative idea into a reality. This was certainly the case when new seismic technologies and performance-based designs were introduced on several recent hospital projects.


From lab to job site


After the 1994 Northridge California earthquake, the steel industry was uncertain about how to handle steel moment frame connection design.

Rigorous limitations were imposed on what could be designed without project-specific testing. As a result, heavy steel columns weighing up to 730 pounds per foot were required for a new seven-story, 325,000-square-foot addition to the Sharp Memorial Hospital in San Diego.

After extensive engineering analyses and a thorough search of tested steel moment frame connections, engineers realized the column weight could be cut in half if a deeper column could qualify for the design. The emerging SidePlate proprietary moment framing connection had great potential if project-specific tests could be performed and qualified. The new design would also shave up to $1.8 million off the cost of the project