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Coney Island Hospital opened in Brooklyn, N.Y. over 100 years ago. Since its opening, 272 patients had to be evacuated in eight hours following Hurricane Irene’s landfall on August 11, 2011.
Shortly thereafter, Superstorm Sandy dramatically affected the hospital, flooding its emergency department, damaging critical technology and infrastructure, forcing evacuation orders, and forcing an extensive cleanup effort.
Svetlana Lipyanskaya, CEO of NYC Health + Hospitals/South Brooklyn Health. “When Sandy struck, our main street became a river; fish began arriving in our emergency department.”
Coney Island Hospital campus, part of NYC Health + Hospitals/South Brooklyn Health system, serves 875,000 residents living in southern Brooklyn – making it an invaluable asset to this community.
As it took several months to fully reopen after Hurricane Sandy’s damage, Lipyanskaya says the health system realized they required a more resilient campus for both this hospital and community moving forward.
FEMA awarded NYC Health + Hospitals/South Brooklyn Health a $923 million grant that included construction of a hospital tower that will house critical services, such as an emergency department on the second-floor, imaging, pharmacy and labs – along with essential mechanical systems like emergency generators, heating/cooling units and water pumps.
The project would also include construction of a 1,720-foot flood wall to safeguard vital services on the existing campus, which was recently renamed South Brooklyn Health campus, from extreme weather events in future years.
“We play an invaluable role in our communities, so keeping our doors open is absolutely critical,” Lipyanskaya emphasizes. Therefore resilience was the determining factor when designing this building.
Prioritizing Resilient Design Opened in May, this 11-story building was named the Ruth Bader Ginsburg Hospital after Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1993-2020). She hails from South Brooklyn.
Resiliency was of primary concern on this project, according to John Flanagan, Senior Project Architect & Project Manager from NBBJ New York. However, another challenge involved creating an approachable yet safe building.
As part of its funding requirements, this project required that its 13-acre campus be protected to FEMA’s 100-year flood level. To balance safety with code compliance while creating a welcoming hospital that was approachable and accommodating to diverse residential neighborhoods in its vicinity, the team employed numerous planning and design strategies.
Instead of employing a conventional concrete flood wall around the campus, this structure incorporates self-rising flood barriers and large sliding gates; while on its northern edge facing towards the community, part of its walls have flood walls integrated within.
Flanagan asserts, “Our goal is to reduce the scale and protection associated with buildings in close proximity to their community.”
Design of a Hospital Tower Its To safeguard their new 346,785-square-foot critical services building against flooding to 500-year flood levels, the project team implemented measures to elevate parking beneath it in order to elevate it above flood zones.
Building enclosure design features hurricane-resistant glass curtain wall systems designed to withstand strong winds and flying debris; mechanical equipment floors on the fifth level above projected flood levels have an insulated metal panel-clad curtain wall assembly as their curtain wall system of choice.
Inside, the first floor serves as an expansive lobby space designed to host community events while clinical spaces such as modern labor and delivery suites, state-of-the-art surgical services, 80 private medical/surgical beds and 60 behavioral health beds are located on upper floors.
Flood-control measures | Second floor floodproof emergency department is accessible from both elevators from the main lobby as well as vehicle ramp leading directly to its entrance.
As part of their first-floor security measures, any critical infrastructure, such as elevators or machine rooms, are protected with flood-control measures including concealed fabric flood barriers and aluminum plank flood barriers.
Design measures should ensure that buildings and critical infrastructure can quickly return to operation following a flood event, so as to maximize recovery times.
“This approach does not protect in place and continue providing care,” according to Bryan Langlands, principal at NBBJ (New York) and senior medical planner on this project. In case of another superstorm, [the plan would] involve diverting patients away, protecting the building with minimal staff present on-site and quickly reactivating it post storm, with recovery times that aim to occur days rather than months.
As soon as COVID-19 hit, project team took advantage of an opportunity to implement additional resilience measures, including infrastructure that converts specific floors to negative pressure and adding electrical outlets, medical gases and technology for accommodating future patient surges.
“COVID taught us that we don’t really know what lies ahead for us,” Lipyanskaya notes, so the more flexible our spaces can be kept, the faster we can respond to whatever comes our way in the future.
Connecting to the Neighborhood Alongside their goal of developing a resilient healthcare facility, the project team recognized an opportunity to make their hospital more welcoming to staff and patients by creating a new front door entrance and enriching both staff and patient experience.
Looking towards its local community for ideas, the project team took cues from natural and cultural aspects like Coney Island boardwalk, beach and amusement park attractions as points of reference when creating themes for material selections and color palettes.
As an example, the concrete flood wall features a wood-like texture to emulate the feel of a boardwalk, while exterior metal panels boast pleated folds which allow light to play across their surfaces for visual interest.
Inside, this building boasts a soft and warm palette inspired by sea and sky hues for furnishings and wallcoverings, accented with wood accents. Langlands notes that its large light-filled entrance and lobby were created to instil pride among residents.
Langlands states: “Our objective was to design a beacon that represented and highlighted Coney Island’s distinctive culture and diversity.”
After opening its doors to patients in August 2015, Ruth Bader Ginsburg Hospital received its inaugural test as the region experienced extreme weather and rainfall conditions.
Although other facilities were forced to close due to damage from inclement weather, Lipyanskaya reports that her new hospital remained open and dry; even accepting some patients from other facilities.
“Now we have a modern campus that will stand the test of weather and time, serving our community for decades to come,” states Mrs. Kettleman.
Anne DiNardo serves as Executive Editor for Healthcare Design magazine and can be contacted at [301-696-5049].
