From the aboriginal-inspired architecture, to the solar photovoltaic system installed on the roof, the newly expanded St. Mary’s Hospital in Sechelt, BC, provides patients and staff with a vibrant link to the surrounding natural landscape. According to a press release sent out in the spring for the hospital’s reopening, members of the Sechelt Indian Band played an significant role in the design process, emphasizing connections to nature to foster overall health and healing.
“The design team set out to reflect indigenous themes and take advantage of the site’s natural beauty,” says Tye Farrow, senior partner at Farrow Partnership Architects, in the release. “Our team took inspiration from the cedar bent-box, unique to the coastal First Nations. In this concept, the bent-box holds our most precious possession – our health.”
The 20 kilowatt solar array on the roof is harnessing the energy of the sun and converting sunshine to electricity, while helping the hospital meet LEED Gold certification and its goal of achieving net carbon reduction for the site. The system, which will offset electricity, is estimated to produce 20,000 kilowatt hours (kWhs) a year, as much as three efficient homes would consume annually.
“The installation is a great source of supplemental power for the hospital , and even on cloudy days the solar modules have the capacity to turn light into electricity to offset consumption,” says Landon Aldridge, principal of Terratek Energy, a renewable energy services company that designed and installed the system for Perkins + Will, the architect company that worked on the hospital project in collaboration with Farrow Partnership Architects.
“At the beginning of the project, we worked closely with Vancouver Coastal Health to help set some ambitious goals that would also satisfy a provincial mandate to build to a high environmental standard,” says Tavis McAuley, the project architect on St. Mary’s. “The integration of the solar system, as well as a focus on passive strategies like providing occupants access to natural daylight and ventilation, all work together to achieve a push-the-envelope hospital that we are all proud of.”
The project includes 125 boreholes, each 250 feet deep, which provide a source of zero-carbon energy for heating and cooling the building. Inside, the expansion accommodates new inpatient rooms, labour and delivery unit and larger emergency and radiology departments while providing state of the art equipment.