City hospitals in Turkey: a review of acoustical criteria and design principles

Recently developed Integrated Health Campus or the so-called City Hospital projects in Turkey brings on the requirement of re-evaluation of acoustical design principles and criteria for healthcare facilities. In acoustical design process, determination of adequate acoustic design criteria is the primer topic, as for preventing over/under design and determination of suitable acoustical materials along with sustainability of hospital projects accommodated in more than one million square meter enclosed spaces including various public / medical utilities. Currently, acoustical design criteria mainly rely on "Turkish Regulation on Protection of Buildings from Noise ", "Health Buildings Minimum Design Standards", green building certification requirements and other international design guidelines, which are compared and discussed within this study in scope of building and room acoustics, mechanical noise and vibration control for functional units as common spaces, operating, patient and isolation rooms, lithotripter room and various medical, electromechanical installations and equipment. In consequence, a wide range of optimum values in different references are observed for some objective parameters as of sound transmission class, reverberation time and average sound absorption coefficient. For resolving these issues of defining the optimum objective criteria, the necessity of acoustic design guideline for healthcare facilities adopting a research based on subjective response of the users and an indoor soundscape approach is highlighted.