Commissioned by Istituto Auxologico Italiano, the initiative involves designing the expansion and transformation of San Luca Hospital into a 20,000 sqm high-technology hospital complex. More specifically, the project integrated new functions and spaces into the existing hospital, including a high-tech R&D laboratory, emergency ward, rehabilitation complex, and 60 private rooms. The old and new hospital buildings are now connected by a 9-story extension building with four underground floors totaling 1,435 square meters. RIMOND prepared the project brief and planned the healthcare facility expansion in close collaboration with the Client. The expansion adds the functions of an emergency department, laboratories, and cardiology therapy center to the existing medical complex, covering 10.000sqm of intervention with 7 floors above ground and 3 floors underground.
The problem was bigger than just designing a new hospital. The challenges of this project included maximizing the existing architecture and structure, dealing with heritage constraints that resulted in a lengthy permit process, completely reorganizing the hospital while leaving enough space for therapy areas, and planning a Correct Phasing for the construction process.
The main principles of sustainable urban and global development are issues of rehabilitation, reuse, and optimization of existing buildings. The hospital’s renewal includes a long-term economic analysis of the structure, reduced energy use and maintenance costs, environmental protection of the existing hospital, construction of the new complex, material selection for sustainability, quality, durability, and energy conservation, waste and material minimization, infrastructure redesign in light of global climate change, and remediation of environmentally-compromised areas. The hospital’s obvious long-term viability benefits the city of Milan directly, and we used responsible design to balance social, economic, and environmental concerns.
To overcome the challenges and address the most complex issues that come with a large-scale healthcare project, an integrated project team composed entirely of medical experts, architects, engineers, and specialists was formed. From the planning stage to the detailed design stage, we efficiently managed the design process, meeting all of the client’s milestones.
RIMOND used BIM tools for an integrated Project Delivery (IPD) solution that provided full coordination of all trades in order to deal with the complexity of a modern medical structure. Applying Building Information Modeling (BIM) to this highly complex hospital project is the cornerstone of our design and construction strategy. Using BIM allows our design teams to work in a more coordinated manner, reducing design conflicts, producing more efficient designs, optimizing layouts even under tight deadlines, and aligning methods to achieve a more energy-efficient hospital.
RIMOND was also liaising with local authorities in order to obtain all of the project’s necessary permits and approvals.
