JS4-Atrium-Waiting-Area.jpg(220) Jersey Shore University Medical Center’s (JSUMC) newest project, the $300-million Transforming Care expansion and renovation project, not only provides state-of-the-art healthcare facilities, it also offers up a more sustainable healing environment. The project, which includes a new patient care pavilion with all-private rooms, a diagnostic and treatment building, surgical suites, a new emergency department and level-1 trauma center, and a new parking garage, is seeking LEED Gold certification.

Designed by Texas architecture firm WHR, the JSUMC project features 378,361 square feet of new construction and 38,000 square feet of renovated space. The centerpiece of the project is a new entrance and four-story atrium, which leads to tow multi-story concourses and healing gardens. The inspiration for the structure’s design was a sailboat and the three buildings are organized around a node celebrated in a curvilinear form that represents a sail in the wind. Carrying on the sea-side theme, the east-west concourse is designed to suggest a boardwalk, and the nursing units are designed in three neighborhoods that each has a distinct identity relating to water, sky and garden elements found along the shore.

JS3-Atrium-Waiting-Area.jpg(200) The Sheward Partnership, an architecture and sustainability consulting firm in Philadelphia, managed LEED certification for the project. Sustainable elements ranged from two gas-fired co-generation units that convert on-site waster into steam heat (resulting in a 32 percent reduction in energy costs) to designing for 100 percent outdoor air and providing storage for bicycles. Water consumption has been reduced by 30 percent (3,600 gallons per day) by using low-flow fixtures in sinks, showers and urinals wherever possible. Recycled material accounts for $6.5 million in the project and totals 10 percent recycled content for the project. JSUMC also has implements a measurement and verification plan to insure that energy efficiency strategies in the design are being realized throughout the structure’s lifetime.