Spring Break Blog

By Meghan Shanahan

Hello everyone, I am so excited for this Friday at 5 pm, because then Spring break has officially begun. During my break I plan on going home to Chicago, the first weekend I am throwing a bachelorette party for my cousin. Then I will be going to do a site visit for my thesis.  I will also be attempting to work on a research paper for my architectural history class. Then on Sunday before I come back to school, I will go to the South Side Irish Parade. This is a tradition for me to go, and it is also a fun time to see family and friends, plus there are corn beef sandwiches!

My thesis I have been taking a step back from the presentation we had two weeks ago and was reexamining my site location. I did not choose to relocate my site but rather I expanded it. Previously my site was located on a parking lot that was approximately 55,000 square feet. The new site I will expand to will double the square footage. I think the change in square footage will improve the floor plan greatly, before the amount of square footage did not give enough space for the amount of program I need on each floor. The Emergency Care space that are needed are an enormous amount of the program, they are also all need on the same story. So having almost doubles the space, it makes if a lot easier for vertical and horizontal circulation. Circulation in a hospital is critical, especially in an emergency room; it can be life or death in some cases. The decision to make the Emergency department three stories is to then be able to keep the parking that existed on the site originally, but also being able to have the emergency patient care on the second story. The third story would contain transport team area, including the helipad, and enough mechanical space to provide for not only the parking story, emergency patient care floor, but also for any stories that will be added on to this building, giving it the potential to be a tower.

The connection to the existing hospital is still being determined, I am hoping to find more information on my site visit, to be able to establish a connection that will be an appropriate fit for the emergency patient care needs.

I am also happy to say that once I come back from break I will be bringing back with me my two cats. They are currently in Wisconsin with my sister, and then they move to Carbondale to live with me till May. I am so excited to have them, it’s like having a two small pieces of home with me here in Carbondale! Have a good break!