Engineering-News Record (ENR) featured the Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters (CHKD) medical tower project, highlighting the durability, safety, and agility inherent within the project’s design and delivery approach. M.C. Dean provided modular design and delivery for the new $224-million, 14-story hospital, located in Norfolk, Virginia.
ENR MidAtlantic profiles CHKD in the featured article, “Virginia Children’s Hospital Built for Durability, Safety, Serenity”.
Read moreThe project broke ground in September 2019 and is scheduled for completion in February 2022. The hospital’s leadership envisions the new tower fulfilling a critical need for full spectrum pediatric mental and behavioral health services in the state. CHKD selected M.C. Dean for design assistance, electrical installation, and modular fabrication of nurse call systems and pathways for security, telecommunications, and public address systems aligned with our core design principles:
Form
The complex facility was restricted to a tight footprint, requiring extensive redesign of the project. Through early coordination, M.C. Dean was able to identify cost-effective ways to sequence the building leveraging modular delivery and prefabrication. The modular room building information modeling (BIM) model was fully integrated into the building design as a part of the overall project BIM coordination. Pathways were designed, then segmented into assemblies during our detailing. All other assemblies for lighting and in‑wall systems were captured for production directly from the BIM model to ensure comprehensive accuracy.
Function
By utilizing modular design and prefabrication of electrical and systems rooms, assemblies, and pathways, M.C. Dean was able to shift labor off-site into a controlled environment, enhancing safety. Through our pre-installation, testing, and checkout (PITCO) process, the firm was able to ensure systems were completely wired and tested prior to arrival on site, providing ‘just in time’ delivery to the space-restricted site. M.C. Dean is also utilizing InfraLink™, previously known as Job Connect™, to efficiently manage and track the entire project lifecycle.
Durability & Safety
The project required a higher level of durability and safety than traditional facilities. The M.C. Dean project team designed and installed anti-ligature fixtures and devices in the facility for the safety of the children and caregivers. Anti-ligature fixtures comply with behavioral health facilities standards, providing high quality illumination, gapless installation, tamper and dust resistance, and eliminating sharp corners.
M.C. Dean is Building Intelligence®. We design, build, operate, and maintain cyber-physical solutions for the nation’s most recognizable mission critical facilities, secure environments, complex infrastructure, and global enterprises. The company’s capabilities include electrical, electronic security, telecommunications, life safety, automation and controls, audio visual, and IT systems. M.C. Dean is headquartered in Tysons, Virginia, and employs more than 5,800 professionals who engineer and deploy automated, secure, and resilient power and technology systems; and deliver the management platforms essential for long-term system sustainability.
