US Army Corps of Engineers, Europe

Rhine Ordnance Barracks - Medical Center Replacement (ROB-MCR)

Project complexity, times three.

The new Rhine Ordnance Barracks-Medical Center Replacement (ROB-MCR) will serve the large military community southwest of Frankfurt, Germany, in a high-quality, sustainable healing environment that improves patient outcomes and affirms the trust of the beneficiaries served. A joint interest between the U.S. Government and the Federal Republic of Germany, the facility is designed to ensure full compliance with U.S. and German codes and standards, as well as U.S. military regulations.

Services

Location

Weilerbach, DE

Partners

  • GTB - Local MEP
  • HOK - Design Architect
  • HWP Planungsgesellschaft mbH - Architect of Record

LEED Status

Registered for LEED

Building Size

985,000 square feet
39%
better than ASHRAE 90.1

The design team for this highly complex project includes U.S. and German architects in a joint venture and U.S. firms with German partners across all disciplines. AEI led engineering planning and early-phase design. To meet the layered combinations of stringent requirements – and to support additional sustainability criteria for water performance and such indoor environmental quality measures as access to daylight in operating rooms and requirements for operable windows – extensive modeling was undertaken, including climate analysis accessing site-specific data from nearby Ramstein Air Force Base.

Combining U.S. Army and Air Force services for improved operational efficiencies, ROC-MCR will provide care to personnel arriving directly from theaters of operations in Central and Western Asia, and additionally provide specialist care for patients referred from other facilities in the European Union Command.

ROC-MCR includes a 160-bed hospital, ambulatory care, surgery, women’s services, primary care, family medicine, behavioral health care, imaging, diagnostics and treatment, and parking. The heating and cooling loads are managed by a combination of radiant systems, active chilled beams, and high-performance variable-air volume systems. Modular heat recovery chillers support the base heating and cooling loads, supplemented by efficient chillers and boilers. The project is anticipated to achieve LEED 2009 for Healthcare Gold without additional cost to the project.

“Code analysis isn’t an apples-to-apples exercise. And reconciling codes isn’t a matter of simply using the most stringent requirement.”
— Ricky Flansburg, US Army Corps of Engineers

Project Leaders