It is difficult to believe the sheer complexity of the decision making involved in so mundane-seeming a topic as flooring for healthcare facilities. Healthcare facilities themselves are relatively complicated buildings, with a broad array of demands ranging from supporting high-tech machinery and high-traffic corridors, to providing welcoming public areas and nearly homelike patient accommodations. In recent years, the variety of products available to meet these needs has grown exponentially. Style, durability, maintenance, sustainability, and choice of materials are all major areas of consideration when specifying, installing, and maintaining healthcare flooring. Recently, Contributing Editors Richard L. Peck and Shannon Powers-Jones interviewed some of the key players in the design, specification, construction, and installation of this key structural element.
ARCHITECT
Jane Rohde
Principal, JSR Associates, Inc., Ellicott City, Maryland
What trends have you seen in the design of healthcare facility flooring?
In 2009, I assessed 21 VA hospitals for the Green Building Initiative (www.gbi.org) and was interested to see more emphasis being placed on an aesthetic approach to renovation, with increasing use of carpeting and soft or indirect lighting to create warm, welcoming healing environments in clinical spaces. During postoccupancy evaluation of long-term care facilities, another trend discovered was increasing use of flooring using composite materials made from recycled elements, such as rubber and cork mixtures. But we have seen failures of these composites over the past five years as well.
I remember one facility where the composite flooring couldn't stand up to repeated cart traffic, to the point that forces exerted through the substrate were sufficient to translate and puncture the surface, with the entire sheet product needing replacement. That's why I recommend mocking up the highest traffic areas and testing various materials before specifying them. Composites are an important type of recycling materials, but they have to function for the intended application to be successful and provide a sustainable option.
What are some noteworthy new developments?
