Eight types of ‘forgotten spaces’ in health care facilities

Best practice for mitigating the occurrence of “forgotten spaces” is to employ a checklist of rooms and engineered systems. Space types that must be accounted for include the following:

Related Article

Making room for building systems

• Mechanical rooms and systems. These include chiller rooms, boiler rooms, pump rooms, air movement equipment, cooling towers, air plenums, penthouses, pipe chases, shafts, interstitial spaces and equipment circulation spaces.
• Electrical rooms and systems. These include normal power, essential power, switchboard rooms, generator control rooms, uninterruptible power supply (UPS) rooms, vertical riser and pull rooms, and high-voltage utility vaults.
• Information technology. This has its own set of space needs, which can include main distribution frame rooms, low-voltage rooms or intermediate distribution frame rooms, network point of presence rooms, UPS rooms, radio systems and antennae, fire alarm systems, equipment circulation, vertical risers and chases.
• Fire protection and plumbing spaces. These requirements can include fire pump rooms, fire pump automatic transfer switches and controls, incoming water service rooms, water storage rooms, medical gas equipment, fire protection equipment, bulk or local oxygen, nitrogen and nitrous oxide, chases and shafts.
• Envelope space. These needs can include edges of the slab and wall, wall thickness, miscellaneous metals and exterior material, wall framing, core blockouts and large equipment.
• Elevators and vertical transportation spaces. Things to keep in mind here include elevator lobbies and vestibules, machine rooms, penthouses, shafts, pathways for controls cabling, chases, control panels and pits.
• Stairwell and chute spaces. These include vestibules, stairs, trash and laundry chutes and collection, escalators, dumbwaiters and stair offsets.
• Miscellaneous rooms. These can include code-compliant mechanical-electrical-plumbing storage, housekeeping space, facilities workrooms, clean utility rooms, public toilets, locker rooms and staff areas, private branch exchanges, central operations, security offices and command centers, fire command centers, autonomous guidance vehicle spaces and electrical vehicle cart storage.