ESPERANZA ORTEGA BARRETO – SPECIALISED HEALTH ARCHITECT, COLUMBIA SUSTAINABLE HOSPITAL ARCHITECTURE


Sustainable design and construction


Columbian hospitals are focusing on sustainable design and construction, using innovative strategies to reduce energy and minimise their impact on the environment. Hospital architect, Esperanza Ortega Barreto, offers an insight into ecological certification in Colombia and the key recommendations to consider when striving to achieve sustainable hospitals.


The environmentalist Luis Garrido defined sustainability as guaranteeing “the highest level of welfare and development of citizens”, while enabling the “highest degree of wellbeing and development of future generations and their maximum integration into the life cycles of Nature”.1


For the purposes of this article, this definition will apply.


Ecological certification and hospital construction in Colombia Environmental institutions are tasked with creating national and international standards – defining technical specifications, verifying compliance and certifying the environmental qualities of products, materials, buildings, companies and urban areas. Since 2002, Colombia has adopted Ecological Certification regulations relating to the use of natural resources. This includes regulations on the environment and eco-urbanism, informed by strategies for the management of liquid and solid waste by: l L’Instituto Colombiano de Normas Técnicas y Certificación (INCONTEC) – recognised by the Colombian


Figure 1. Site of ‘Las Gaviotas’ an experimental rural hospital.


Government as the National Standardisation Body.


l El Consejo Nacional de Política Económica y Social (CONPES) – the Colombian National Council of Economic and Social Policy.


Several Ministries and other agencies collaborated on developing the regulatory norms, such as the ACAIH (Colombian


Esperanza Ortega Barreto


Esperanza Ortega Barreto was born in Bogotá, Colombia. She has lived in Wellington, New Zealand since 2013. She studied


Architecture and Urbanism, (National University of Colombia); Specialisation in Hospital Management (ESAP). She has a Masters and PhD in Hospital Architecture (AIU U.S). She


practiced her profession with emphasis on health projects for 36 years, in: Planning, Urban Implementation, Design,


Construction Management, Supervision, Teaching and as a speaker. She worked with two government Institutes, as a Specialised Health Architect, for 25 years and directed the Health


Division (Colombian Society Architects) in 2003-2004. She won two design awards in 2011: ‘Best General University and Maternity Hospital project for Puerto Principe, Haiti’ and ‘Best Institutional Project’.


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Association of Hospital Architects and Engineers); based on international standards, such as: ISO 14,000 and 14,001 (1996-2.018) – covering: ‘Specifications, Certification and Environmental Accreditation’; and ISO 9001 (2015), which relates to: ‘Quality management’. It also draws on the “LEED


Certification” (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) – an internationally recognised green building certification system; and The Green Guide to Health Care in Spanish for Hospital projects. The Colombian standard 4445, of 1996, and its annexes were also included. The environmental control of hospital


institutions was initiated in 2003 by the ‘Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic of Colombia’. This was supported by the publication of a 25-page document: Control of Institutional Works2


, which included


chapters on: the design of the project, through to its operation; control of the budget allocated to the environmental project; implementation; conservation of natural resources; and details of various sustainability programmes.


IFHE DIGEST 2020


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