Healthcare

Rochester General Hospital Atrium

Rochester, NY

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Rochester General Hospital in Rochester, New York incorporated a new atrium in the Access Center of the hospital to welcome patients and visitors. RAN Fire Protection Engineering’s president provided code consulting and development of design criteria for the smoke management system of the atrium.

The scope of services provided include:

• Code research to address general building requirements.

• Code analysis for basis of design criteria.

• Meetings with design team to discuss approach and identify potential cost saving options.

• Performance of preliminary smoke management calculations

• Identification feasible design concepts

• General oversight of the systems that will require coordination (such as HVAC, Architectural, etc…) with the smoke management system

It was discovered early within the design phase that the application of the prescriptive building code requirements would result in a “windtunnel” condition within the atrium. The prescriptive building code requirements would also result in the expensive installation of equipment that would not meet the intent of the code. A report was generated which outlined the preliminary code analysis, criteria for the design fire, and exhaust rate. The report summarized the basic design criteria for the smoke management system which was used to evaluate system design options. The final design incorporated application performance-based criteria for the smoke management system specific to the building conditions. It resulted in a 50% cost savings and a functional smoke.