IHBE Faculty Research

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Daylighting Patient Rooms in Northwest Hospitals
(Institute for Health in the Built Environment, University of Oregon, 2005-10) Brown, G.Z.; Brickman, Johanna; Kline, Jeff; Livingston, Gina; McDonald, Brooks; Smith, Crawford; Staczek, David; Wilkerson, Mark
This section is intended to enable hospital design professionals to quickly understand the basic principles of hospital patient room daylighting design in order to apply them in their current design projects. It delineates the important variables such as room width and depth, and describes how they interact. The section concludes with 10 prototype patient room designs that represent a range of possibilities for typical hospital design. The potential benefits from daylighting patient rooms are energy savings and increased patient well-being. Lights can be turned off when daylight is available, saving electrical energy. Turning off the electric lights can reduce internal heat gain, which in turn reduces the size of the cooling system, reducing both initial and operating costs. Proper placement of the windows increases the opportunity for views and the availability of daylight, both of which can improve patient wellbeing.