Great environmental awareness as Värmland County Council expands Karlstad Central Hospital

New buildings for Karlstad Central Hospital for Värmland County Council. The client stipulated that the specified materials should be verified and assessed by the Sunda Hus (‘healthy building’) environmental certification system. All materials less than class B had to be separately evaluated by the county council.

One challenge was to achieve the project target for specific energy consumption for the building, which was set at a maximum of 100 kWh/m2 per year. Given the energy output needed for the necessary technical installations and the energy losses through the large window areas, energy losses through the building envelope had to be minimised. COWI is responsible for project design management, building design and moisture management.

Another goal of the project was to create a ‘healing building’ in which the indoor environment could also contribute to patient recovery.
COWI advised on ways to achieve this.