Case
Studies |
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Case
Study 1: Structured Hospital Renewal
Building a new hospital is a relatively simple project when
compared with refurbishing an existing one and maintaining
services. Older hospitals, particularly those built in the
1960s and 1970s are now reaching the end of the design life
of their infrastructure.
Services
are the arteries of hospitals and service failure risk rises
exponentially with time once the lifecycle has been reached.
Thirty
year old hospitals can be given a new lease of life, but
often require a very structured approach to the project.
This was true of the Royal Liverpool Hospital, a 12 storey
reinforced concrete building with service ducts designed
to accommodate the services at the time it was built, but
with little thought to their replacement.
AHM
were brought in by Norwest Holst to manage the feasibility
study requested by the client. The design team consisted
of:-
Project
Management – Ash House Management
Health Planning - Directions Consultancy
Architecture - Nightingale Associates
Structural Engineering - Alan Johnston Partnership
Services Engineering - NG Bailey & Co.
Cost Management - Franklin + Andrews
Project Planning - Norwest Holst
The
project, completed in three months to a strict budget provided
a detailed survey of existing services, options for decanting
and recommendations for the content and configuration of
both new build and refurbished elements of the site.
The
Royal Liverpool Project
For
the past thirty years the Royal Liverpool University Hospital
has successfully met health service demands and the rising
expectations of patients. However, while the building structure
is sound and the hospital received a positive CHI report
in 2003, the RLBUH Trust has identified major problems in
its engineering services and in elements of the building
fabric which present a potential risk to future health service
delivery.
Since
the hospital opened, the Trust has had to manage background
issues and risks associated with poor fire evacuation design
and the prevalence of asbestos as a pipework insulator,
as well as being hampered by overcrowded ducts which restricted
the replacement of services.
The
original engineering services are reaching the end of their
design life; equally patient expectations and medical requirements
have advanced. As part of a wider exploration of options,
the Trust commissioned a report to assess the condition
of the existing buildings and services and to ascertain
the feasibility of refurbishing the existing buildings and
installing new services to meet current standards.
Because
of the scale of the replacement of engineering services
and associated refurbishment, the design team concluded
that the internal partitions and finishes should be stripped
back to the structural frame in order to provide maximum
design life to new installations. This approach would also
provide opportunities for improving room and inter-departmental
relationships throughout the project.
Before
the commencement of the refurbishment, additional facilities
would need to be constructed to enable a process of decanting
to take place. The design team provided three Options to
demonstrate the effect that different configurations of
the New Build would have on the overall refurbishment programme.
This
project enabled the RLBUHT to meet the timetable and apply
for the 2004 SOC round.
Case
Study 1 Case Study 2
Case Study 3
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