How Base Isolation benefits the Architectural Design of Hospital buildings

This paper reports on an investigation into how base isolation can produce benefits for the architectural design of hospitals. If a relatively new technology such as base isolation can be coupled with interdisciplinary collaboration from the birth of a project, it seems possible to achieve an improvement not only in their seismic, but also in their architectural design. The methodology adopted for this research consisted of identifying the architectural implications of the use of base seismic isolation in hospitals. The three basic architectural components: Firmitas (structure), Utilitas (function) and Venustas (aesthetics) that comprise Vitruvian definition of architecture were analysed for each building. The paper concludes that the use of base isolation in the hospital buildings studied has increased the overall quality of their architectural design.