News

Arup and Rönesans Holding celebrate the grand opening of Başakşehir Pine and Sakura City Hospital

Jackie Wei Green Americas Head of Communications,Los Angeles

22 May 2020

Arup and global contracting and investment firm Rönesans Holding are pleased to announce that Istanbul’s Başakşehir Pine and Sakura City Hospital, the largest base-isolated building in the world, has officially opened after partially opening last month to help with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Along with Perkins & Will and Yazgan Design Architecture, Arup collaborated with Rönesans Holding and Sojitz Corporation, a Japanese investment and trade corporation, to design and bring to life the hospital, which spans one million m² of construction area and features 2,068 seismic isolators. As the structural engineer for the project, Arup ensured the seismic resilience of the large-scale hospital, which is located near the North Anatolian fault in an area that has suffered highly destructive earthquakes in the past.

As one of the world’s most populous cities, Istanbul saw the need to expand their healthcare offerings with a new large-scale hospital to serve its growing population.

The engineering behind the seismically resilient hospital was no small feat – it involved evaluation of hundreds of structural configurations, including multiple seismic isolation schemes and concrete wall layouts. By taking a unique approach of in-house developed digital tools and cloud-based modelling, Arup was able to make the analysis of the large-scale structure possible, while also significantly improving the efficiency of the design process. By conducting the rapid seismic isolation and structural optioneering studies at the outset of the project, Arup was able to complete the design of the hospital in less than a year.

In addition to providing world-class healthcare services, the hospital needed to be seismically secure, as Istanbul is located near the North Anatolian fault and has suffered highly destructive earthquakes in the past.

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We are excited to celebrate the opening of Başakşehir Pine and Sakura City Hospital with Rönesans Holding, who have been great collaborators throughout this project’s different phases, This monumental project will not only help provide critical healthcare services to Istanbul’s growing population, but also add to the resiliency of the community. ” Aysegul Gogus Arup Project Manager

The hospital is designed to satisfy ASCE 41 “Immediate Occupancy” seismic performance objective under a very rare earthquake event. To achieve the enhanced seismic performance criteria of the design, Başakşehir Pine and Sakura City Hospital’s structure is supported by 2,068 triple-friction-pendulum (TFP) isolators, which can displace up to 700mm in a seismic event, allowing energy to be dissipated and reducing damage to the superstructure. The final design ensures that the hospital can remain operational, even for functions as delicate as surgeries, after a Maximum Considered earthquake, an event so rare that it is expected to occur only once in approximately 2,500 years.

Başakşehir Pine and Sakura City Hospital features three hospital towers, six clinic buildings, and five auxiliary facility buildings that provide 2,682 beds divided between the main hospital, psychiatric hospital, and the physical treatment and rehabilitation facility.

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This project is truly a demonstration of Arup’s journey to leverage cloud computing to successfully transform traditional workflows. Our early and effective collaboration with Rönesans Holding ensured that they were able to be engaged in the engineering design and leverage this information as part of their procurement strategy and process, ultimately allowing them to choose the most optimum isolation scheme based on performance, cost, and schedule. ” Atila Zekioglu Arup Project Director