The Living With Environmental Change (LWEC) partnership has published a concise but detailed document setting out some of the options for more sustainably and effectively preventing acute hospitals from summer overheating.
Stressing that climate change will exacerbate the problem, and that air conditioning is ‘expensive and energy-intensive’, 'Avoiding summer overheating while saving energy in acute hospitals' considers ‘more realistic, adaptive comfort models' that LWEC says ‘offer greater scope for low energy solutions, reflecting real patient and staff experience of temperatures’, than some current practice, against a backdrop where ‘recent changes’ – such as 100 mm window opening restrictions, lightweight suspended ceilings ‘masking’ buildings’ thermal mass, and ‘filled in’ internal courtyards – may be ‘compromising the (cooling) performance’ of buildings.
Presented are alternatives to ‘energy-intensive air conditioning’, for example ‘using building mass and orientation to positive effect’, using ‘Advanced Natural Ventilation’ to move air through buildings, and exploiting the fact that up to 70 % of a typical acute hospital can be ventilated naturally. The document stresses that ‘low energy, climate-adapted refurbishment and energy-saving design of new hospitals need not be more expensive options’.
The guide (written by Professor C Alan Short and Dr Alistair Fair, and drawing on Design and Delivery of Robust Hospital Environments in a Changing Climate) is downloadable at www.lwec.org.uk/sites/default/files/attachments_biblio/LWEC%20PP%20Note%2007.pdf For hard copies, email: anne.liddon@newcastle.ac.uk.
