Penn Medicine’s new Pavilion of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania’s campus has broken new ground for sustainable healthcare construction and design with Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Healthcare Gold Certification. Incorporating sustainability efforts since the beginning of its development, the 17-story, future-ready patient facility is the largest certified project in the world to achieve Gold certification or higher in LEED Healthcare. At 1.5 million square feet, the Pavilion—which opened on October 30—is also the first hospital in the United States of more than one million square feet to achieve certification in LEED Healthcare.

LEED, developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), is the most widely used green building rating system in the world and an international symbol of excellence. The LEED Healthcare rating system focuses on green initiatives at inpatient, outpatient and licensed long-term care facilities, medical offices, assisted living facilities, and medical education and research centers. To become LEED certified, a building must earn a threshold of points across multiple measurements for green building excellence, from sustainable site development to energy efficiency and water savings.

Conservation initiatives during the Pavilion project included recycling materials that were collected after the demolition of Penn Tower, which formerly stood on the new hospital’s site, including 291 tons of scrap steel and 17,000 tons of concrete. 

In addition, during the Pavilion’s construction, about 25 percent of materials were prefabricated and manufactured off-site, including more than 570 mechanical/electrical/plumbing racks and all 504 bathrooms for each patient room. This process minimized on-site waste, reduced traffic impact and site congestion, increased quality, and lowered cost.

Overall, the energy efficiency efforts at the Pavilion are anticipated to save more than 14 percent in annual energy costs compared to merely a code-compliant hospital. The building itself also uses 100 percent outside air through its HVAC system, using energy recovery wheels to capture and repurpose waste energy.

Along with saving energy, the facility was constructed to cut 30 percent of typical indoor water use through the installation of select fixtures and designs that use significantly less water, such as low-flow and low-flush toilets, sinks, and showers. 

In addition, more than 20 percent of the water required for the building’s HVAC equipment is provided by water captured and reused on site, such as rainwater, condensate, and foundation dewatering. Two cisterns, which help supply the chilled water system, are projected to process seven million gallons of captured non-potable water each year.