Karolinska Hospital Builds Stockholm Facility

Construction is under way on the New Karolinska Solna (NKS) Hospital, a 3.5 million-sf, multi-building facility in Solna, a suburb of Stockholm, Sweden. Owned by Stockholm County Council, the government entity responsible for providing healthcare and public transport to greater Stockholm, the $2.5 billion project is being built under a unique public-private-partnership (PPP) agreement. Skanska is acting as the project’s developer and contractor and is also responsible with its investment partner, Innisfree, for financing and facility management/maintenance for 25 years after completion.The NKS will be a new, ultra-modern university hospital with 600 inpatient beds (including 125 ICU beds), 100 outpatient beds, 36 operating rooms, and eight radiation bunkers. The complex encompasses the hospital building, a research building, a technology building, a 100-bed patient hotel, and a new parking facility. A number of existing buildings will also be integrated to the complex. The translational research facility is designed to meet the demands of healthcare and medical science for up to 100 years, with buildings planned so they can be durable and flexible when it comes to incorporating new advances in technology.With initial design concepts from White Architects (Sweden), the hospital will reflect a new, more patient-focused approach to healthcare delivery, based on evidence-based design, operational efficiency, safety, and sustainability. A joint venture of White Architects and Tengbom Architects (Sweden) will be the architect of record, employed by Skanska under a design/build agreement.  The sustainably designed project will be built to achieve a gold level of the Swedish certification system Miljoklassad Byggnad and a minimum of LEED Gold. The hospital will be built and operated with the lowest environmental impact to date in new hospital construction, according to Skanska’s Green Workplace concept which includes measures to reduce climate impact. NKS intends to have as near a zero-impact rating regarding greenhouse gas pollution as reasonably possible, even for backup power generators for heating and electricity. The estimated energy requirements for NKS will be approximately 124 kWh/m2/year, roughly half the amount of power a hospital of NKS’s size normally uses. At least 98% of energy needs will come from renewable sources with low carbon dioxide emissions, a combination of energy produced in-house and district heating/cooling through a heat pump plant that includes 140 drill holes and solar panels. Advanced lighting control systems based on daylight coming into the building will aim to save energy as will a controlled ventilation system to enhance air quality.All materials used in construction and during the hospital’s operational life cycle will be resource-efficient. This includes everything from concrete in the foundations to walls, floors, ceilings, lighting fixtures, bulbs, and switches.  Construction will use recyclable components based on renewable sources and attempt to be carbon neutral where possible. Everything needing disposal and recycling will be sorted and transported using vacuum/pneumatic tubes, and materials/byproducts unsuitable for vacuum transport will be conveyed in specialized fully-contained automated vehicles to a reprocessing center.