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MADE TO ORDER Prefabrication of HVAC, mechanical components setting new bar in healthcare facilities Though not a new concept, prefabrication is a strategy that is taking off in commercial construction. Healthcare projects, with the potential to reach a critical mass of repeating features, such as multi-trade above-ceiling racks, patient bathrooms and headwalls, seem to offer good opportunities for a strong return on investment, particularly for mechanical and plumbing components. Prefab becomes even more effective when successfully integrated with virtual design and construction and building information modeling processes, and any HVAC contractor involved with BIM understands how valuable it has become to avoiding field coordination issues, change orders and cost overruns. Prefabrication requires owner, design and construction teams to make decisions earlier than in a typical linear onsite delivery. The teams have to work through detailed design decisions including finishes, ceiling heights and the systems above-theceiling such as HVAC and hot and cold water. The Exempla Saint Joseph Replacement Hospital, being built in downtown Denver, Colo. by Mortenson Construction, provides a case study for the benefits of large-scale prefabrication. At a leased warehouse about five miles away from the jobsite, work is underway on the assembly of multi-trade racks and headwalls, which will be installed on this new 830,000-square-foot, $623-million hospital located in Denver's urban core. In addition, 446 bathrooms, prefabricated down to the toilet paper roll holder, will be shipped to the site from Eggrock 54 Medical Construction & Design | January/February 2013 At a warehouse five miles from the project site, workers assemble ducts into 25-foot multi-trade racks to be installed above the ceiling at the new Saint Joseph's replacement hospital in Denver, Colo. Bathroom Pods of Oldcastle in Boston, Mass. "The prefabrication of patient bathrooms led to extensive mockups at very early stages, which allowed hospital staff from nursing to environmental services to adjust details from HVAC to tile color, and get it exactly right, before the bathrooms were prefabricated," said Rob Davidson, AIA, ACHA, principal at H+L Architecture, who, along with Davis Partnership and ZGF, is one of the three architectural firms on the joint venture design team. www.mcdmag.com