Image Credit : UK Government / Ministry of Defence / BDP / BBC / Getty
Project Overview
The NHS Nightingale Hospital, London, is the first in a series of temporary critical care hospitals established in the UK in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Project Creator
Project Context
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to pose unprecedented challenges to even the most robust healthcare systems the world over, the National Health Service is taking extraordinary steps to ramp up capacity in order to tackle the virus.
Project Innovation
In just nine days, NHS staff — with the help of 100s of members of the British Army, and architectural practice BDP transformed the ExCeL exhibition centre in East London into a fully equipped critical care hospital comprising of 500 oxygen and ventilator equipped beds, with room for 3,500 additional beds.
A modular, repeatable approach with minimal building intervention was adopted to ensure rapid delivery. The bed heads and service corridors were constructed from a component system that is usually used to construct exhibition stands. Simple reinforcement allowed for services to be fitted to the walls and the existing electrical infrastructure was modified to increase the resilience, UPS and temporary generators.
In the process of establishing the hospital, BDP created The NHS Nightingale Instruction Manual, which outlines the different concepts that were adopted for the emergency facility. It was created so that information could be disseminated quickly across the UK and more globally.
Design Challenge
As a critical health facility, the NHS Nightingale hospital needed a reliable electrical supply, necessitating the modification of ExCel's electrical infrastructure, and instillation of temporary generators.
In order for the volume of equipped beds to be delivered within a short timeframe, all the teams made immediate decisions to allow construction to progress in parallel with the design. Solutions needed to be flexible, quick to construct and take into account procurement channels to allow fit-out activities to commence immediately.
Social and Community-Oriented Design - Space
Social and community-oriented design applies a design methodology and intervention to tighten the social fabric that holds us together. Addressing issues of social inequality, such as poverty or social isolation, social design is the pathway to a more just and sustainable society. Community-oriented design is a human-centered and participatory design practice that emphasises the betterment of local communities through the improvement of public facilities, equipment, identity and experience.
The space category celebrates the design process and outcomes of planning, designing and constructing form, space and ambience that reflect functional, technical, social, and aesthetic considerations. It includes architecture, interior design and landscape design as well as set display and exhibition design.
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