Alder Hey Children’s Hospital chooses recycled modular buildings
One of Europe’s biggest and busiest paediatric hospitals, Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool, has chosen recycled and refurbished modular buildings for three new facilities.
The three contracts totalling more than £1.5m have each been completed on time and on budget by Foremans Relocatable Building Systems, the UK’s largest supplier of pre-owned modular buildings. Working closely with main contractor G&J Seddon, Foremans has provided an office building for the hospital’s surgical division. The modular approach allowed this scheme to be sited on a steel gantry above a traditionally-built administration block, so the Trust could expand the office accommodation despite the constraints of this busy hospital site.
Foremans’ latest project is a three- storey, 24-module multi-purpose building. This provides a new main entrance for the hospital’s busiest outpatients department, public facilities, a clinical area, and administrative offices for both the orthopaedics department and the medical division. This created additional space for consultations in the decanted areas. In just four months from receipt of
order, Foremans also completed a two- storey facility for the project team managing the £175m redevelopment of the hospital.
The buildings could be in use for up to ten years until the new state-of-the-art Alder Hey Children’s Health Park is completed.
Commenting on the three projects, John Williams, Capital Projects Manager at Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust, said, “The Foremans approach achieves the balance between quality and value. The quality is as good as new manufacture, both internally and externally – but the recycling and refurbishment of building modules is far more cost-effective and sustainable given the strategic direction of the Trust.
“Foremans performed well on each project, delivering all three schemes on time and on budget. We would definitely recommend the approach to other healthcare providers.”
Andrew Wilcox, Contracts Director at main contractors G&J Seddon, added, “Our partnership with Foremans has worked very well. Their approach gives us certainty of completion on time, ensuring
we will meet the Trust’s deadline for handover and occupation. It is also much faster than traditional build. We are pleased with Foremans’ performance and look forward to working with their team on further projects.”
The use of pre-owned modular buildings continues to increase as more clients and contractors recognise the cost, speed, sustainability and quality benefits of this innovative accommodation solution. Once a modular building has been identified for use, it is reconfigured and completely refurbished to individual project requirements. The building is then delivered to site where it is craned into position in just a few days, ready for final fitting out, testing and commissioning. This can reduce programme times by up to 70 per cent for earlier occupation, and because work off site is maximised, the approach is ideal for constrained sites or where disruption would be an issue during construction.
www.foremansbuildings.info
Armstrong gets down to business with packaged plant rooms for Lydiard Fields
Offsite manufactured plant rooms from Armstrong have reduced installation times for two top quality new office buildings at the prestigious Lydiard Fields Business Park. In addition to streamlining the schedule, the variable speed drive pumps at the heart of the HVAC systems will ensure long-term energy efficiency by automatically reacting to the heating and cooling requirements of each building. Washington House and Auckland House represent the second of three phases at the Lydiard Fields Business Park in Swindon, located adjacent to the M4 motorway. Developer BAM Properties purchased the site in May 2004 and has already let some of the previously completed buildings, including Canberra House and Kingston House. When planning the final two projects, BAM – which used the construction arm for the building – and its M & E contractor Renelec Building Services, decided that an offsite construction approach would have significant benefits and approached Armstrong to provide packaged plant rooms.
Armstrong constructed the two plant rooms at its production facility in
Building & Facilities Management – July 2010
Halesowen, West Midlands. The plant rooms incorporate HVAC systems for chilled water, hot water and heating. Incorporation of variable speed drive pumps means that the site will be able to minimise energy consumption. The Armstrong IVS pumps have built-in inverters which automatically calculate the building load throughout the day and night, matching the pump speeds to the demand. These features, along with high efficiency low NOx boilers and a ‘Thermal Wheel’ for ventilation heat and cool recovery have contributed to the offices receiving a ‘Very Good’ rating from BREEAM.
Manufacturing the plant rooms in the factory instead of at the construction site enabled the HVAC element of the project to progress concurrently with the build, rather than having to wait until the completion of the major works. On the date required, the plant rooms were delivered to site fully-assembled, in enclosures, requiring only final connections. This removed risks of bottlenecks such as adverse weather conditions and, as the work could be completed in the more easily
controlled environment of a factory, the health and safety risks for the project could be minimised.
The incorporation of variable speed drive technology has reduced the lifetime cost for the installation and enables BAM to offer the occupiers the benefit of reduced energy bills and improved carbon footprint.
“Potential occupiers of office space are increasingly aware of the cost and CSR impacts of commercial buildings” said Steve Cooper, Director of Renewables and Sustainability at Armstrong. “The equipment choice for the Lydiard Fields office buildings established a long-term basis for reducing carbon footprint by eliminating wasted energy associated with fixed speed pump systems.” Email:
salesuk@armlink.com www.armstrongintegrated.com
Auckland House
feature :: portable & modular buildings
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Portable & Modular Buildings
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