earticle

영어

The development of green building certification systems is moving towards specialization and customization to adapt to the needs of specific building types; such is the case for healthcare facilities, which having conditions to be taken into consideration. Particularly for healthcare facilities, the indoor environment is primordial as it is directly impacting the health and well-being of the occupants within the building. The Green Standard for Energy and Environmental Design (G-SEED) is the green building certification developed by the Korean government. While it has gone thorough major revisions in September 2016, the healthcare facilities building type remained as being evaluated as a 'General Building' without any consideration for its function and any modified evaluation criteria. International green building certification programs such as LEED and BREEAM already have in place a distinct evaluation system for healthcare facilities. In Korea, the population is rapidly aging, and the demand for the construction of healthcare facilities is on the rise. Healthcare facilities are generally complex in function and are large energy consumers, consideration for green building design, such as energy and water efficiency will be essential. In parallel, the design of healthcare facilities will need to be mindful of the use by a variety of occupants, including medical staff, visitors and patients. In other words, the healthcare facilities would need to improve its “indoor environment” in order to optimize the well-being, comfort and health of the occupants, which could be physical or mental. This paper studies the Korean G-SEED certification and its relevance to healthcare facilities and attempts to define the future needs to be addressed in its implementation. Research methodology consists of literature review, comparative analysis of G-SEED with international certification programs (LEED and BREEAM) by assessing the relevance of “indoor environment” for healthcare facilities. Preliminary results of the study suggest discrepancies between the performed evaluation and the actual needs, and improvement measures to the evaluation of “indoor environment” in these facilities are proposed.