Dell Children’s Medical Center of Central Texas

Austin, Texas

This world-class facility is a testament to ccrd teamwork and sustainable design. The Dell Children’s Medical Center of Central Texas is a member of the Seton Family of Hospitals. Designed to be an efficient, functional, and forward-thinking pediatric healthcare environment, the new 170-bed, 475,000 sf Medical Center incorporates innovative sustainability features unique to a healthcare facility. This noteworthy engineering project has achieved the prestigious platinum-level LEED® accreditation, a first in the healthcare industry, where platinum-level accreditation is unprecedented.

Energy conservation is a global concern and leaders at Dell Children’s Medical Center desired sustainability when they talked about the benefits of energy efficiency. In the early design stages, ccrd modeled the building’s energy use to optimize three essential components: the hospital program requirements, the indoor environment, and energy conservation. Not only is the hospital facility one of the most energy efficient in the world, it saved $8,000,000 in capital outlay by outsourcing power, heating, and chilled water needs to Austin Energy. In turn, the hospital will purchase their power, steam, hot water, and chilled water from Austin Energy’s on-site combined heat and power (CHP) plant over a 30 year term. This is the sort of innovative, collaborative thinking that the team at ccrd excels in. The heart of the plant is an on-site 4.3 megawatt combustion turbine generator and components that recycle waste heat including a steam generator and an absorption water chiller.

Typically the waste heat from the power plant is discharged into the atmosphere. However, the waste heat from Dell Children’s Medical Center’s CHP plant is harvested to generate steam and cooling using absorption based water chiller. ccrd utilized energy modeling to optimize the equipment in CHP plant. Through the use of day lighting, efficient lighting design, heat recovery, and ventilation optimization based on carbon-dioxide monitoring, Dell Children’s hospital was able to reduce net energy use by 50% compared to a similarly occupied building located in the same climatic conditions. In addition to providing energy modeling, ccrd provided engineering services for the mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and fire protection systems for the new Medical Center. Looking for creative ways to make healthcare engineering more sustainable is one major way art meets engineering.

Architect: Karlsberger
Owner: Seton Family of Hospitals
Project Size: 475,000 sf
170-bed facility
Completion: 2007
Construction Cost: $140M

Scope of Services
Mechanical
Electrical
Plumbing
Fire Protection Commissioning
Plan
Test Forms