Rhode Island Hospital Bridge Building

Founded in 1863, the 2,000,000-square-foot Rhode Island Hospital (RIH) has been designated the Level I Trauma Center for southeastern New England.

Location

Providence, Rhode Island, USA

Architect

HOK

Project Status

Completed

Awards

Associated General Contractor Merit Award (2006)

Rhode Island Hospital is the largest hospital in southeastern New England, and the region’s only Level 1 trauma facility.

This challenging project—known as the Bridge Building—created a major expansion of the hospital’s emergency department and operating room facilities directly over a major city street. It also included a new underground parking structure and elevated ambulance drop-off plaza.

More Patients Served

The Bridge Building contains a 130,000-square-foot emergency department, 16 high-tech surgery suites, central sterile supply facility and pathology lab. Built to provide support to one of the five busiest emergency centers in the country, the Bridge Building was designed to accommodate additional floors for the future expansion of its bed facilities.
The expansion increased the hospital’s existing critical care capacity from 28 intensive care beds and 26 step-down beds to 83 multifunctional, single-bed intensive care rooms.

New Mechanical Systems Improve Environment

Individual air handling units serve the emergency department, surgery, pathology and common spaces. This allows for specific air pressure relationships among these areas, which is critical to mitigate airborne infections and pollutants. An updated central plant, also designed by WSP, provides steam, hot water and chilled water distribution systems, as well as central clean steam for humidification to provide a healthy environment for staff and patients.

Structural Engineering to Serve the Community

WSP Building Structures was the structural engineer for all phases of work.

Phase 1 included the underground garage, new Emergency Department, a new surgery suites level and a two-story high mechanical space. A key structural challenge was to span over the existing street below within a very shallow structural framing depth, while matching the floors of the adjacent hospital. WSP met this challenge by using an innovative design with deep steel trusses located at the mechanical level on the top floor, and hangers that suspend the floor immediately above the street. This approach also allowed the client to maintain traffic on the street during construction of this complex building.

Phase 2 included three new levels of bed floors and a three-level cantilevered pedestrian bridge extending to a dramatic new 100-foot-tall elevator and stair tower adjacent to the building. The design maximized the capacity of the existing base building by using a high ductility seismic system, resulting in reduced seismic demands on the existing structure. This approach allowed the client to construct an additional floor of beds above the existing space that had not originally been included in the design, greatly expanding the capacity of the hospital in a time of urgent need.