Gotama Building Engineers is working at Cedars Sinai Medical Center on a renovation to install a Gamma Knife treatment room. Gamma Knife surgery is recognized worldwide as the preferred treatment for brain tumors, using a multitude of collimated beams of ionizing radiation in scalpel-like precision.

With a weight load capacity of 8.5 tons and an overall size of , the treatment area required a redesign of the HVAC and electrical systems in support of the Gamma Knife, Cobalt Container and Loading Machine. As this process does not generate heat, no special cooling is required; however, air intake and exhaust needed to be relocated in order to “cap off” the contaminated air, post-treatment, from being expelled. Plumbing was also redistributed so as to avoid the enormous weight of the containment vault. With its location at one end of the existing building, the solution was to pump water from the base building to heat pumps located in the space connected to cooling towers on the roof.

While this project was somewhat complex in nature, the plancheck through OSHPD was completed in a relatively speedy 3-6 months.

Client: Cedars Sinai Medical Center
Architect: Hammel, Green and Abrahmson, Inc. (HGA)
Location: Beverly Hills, CA
Completion: 2006