don’t worry, no one got hurt! i just thought you might be interested to see what mathew works on when he’s not working on the house…
on a warm evening in early november we attended a big opening reception for the hofmann family patient care tower and cardiovascular institute at john muir medical center in concord. this is an engineering project mathew has been working on for many months.
(left to right) two structural engineers: sin and mathew.
we went on a tour and got to see the examining and patient rooms and lots of fancy equipment.
(above) a cardiologist enthusiastically telling us about this new operating room. mathew had been telling me about the headaches of engineering and installing the extremely heavy boom (movable equipment) on the ceiling. it was interesting finally seeing it for myself.
(left) a nurse showing off their super-high-tech beds with music playing near the pillow and controls at the foot of the bed that offer dozens (hundreds?) of programmed languages and phrases. each room could also be sectioned off to give privacy for nurses, patients or guests. (right) cool ceiling lights in the hallways.
(left) more patient rooms. (right) mathew said they even had to do calculations for engineering the small pieces of art onto the walls!
we spent some time in the courtyard looking at the large water feature sculpture that also involved quite a bit of their engineering expertise.
(left) mathew and sin were laughing because the anchorage of this small art/light/circle was so over-engineered. (right) waiting for the train at the bart station.
i think the engineering work mathew does is still somewhat of a mystery to me, but it was fun to see where he used to spend his wednesday afternoons, to meet some of his co-workers and see the project he’s spent so much time on.