New hospital and surgical suites

Central to the hospital’s design is flexibility, with the day hospital designed to allow many different medical specialists to utilise the space. DMA Engineers was engaged to undertake the mechanical and electrical building services design for the project. The key challenges posed by the development included the limited footprint of level one within the Taringa mixed use facility, and the client’s tight construction and operational budget. Working closely with the client, we were responsible for delivering:

• Dedicated chilled water system including air-cooled chiller and air handling units.
• Dedicated variable volume flow (VRF) air conditioning systems.
• Ventilation systems.
• High efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filtration to operating theatres.
• Building management system (BMS) switchboards and reticulation.
• Lighting for general, clinical and operating theatres.
• Power installation including body and cardiac protection.
• Communications and security including dedicated communications systems to theatres and sleep study centres.
• Backup power generation and load controls.

The fit out was designed in accordance with hospital design standards including the Australasian Health Facility Guidelines (AS3003) for body and cardiac protected areas, air-conditioning, medical gasses and all relevant communications and nurse call standards. The site was also provided with a backup diesel generator to allow key equipment to run in the event of blackout, allowing procedures to wind up safely and patients in recovery to be attended to as necessary. The backup generator also provides power to elevators for easy and reliable egress from all levels of the building.

For this project we used Revit modelling software and BIM methodologies for the design and coordination of the electrical and mechanical services. The benefits of this approach included:

• Scheduled exchange of models with the architect enabling all parties to work off the same plans, eliminating costly rework that may have occurred without it.
• Targeted coordination between services to identify constructability issues, reducing construction requests for information (RFIs) and on-site time delays caused by clashes.
• The mechanical services model’s ‘design to fabrication’ workflow allowed the mechanical contractor to save time by generating shop drawings using our Revit model, keeping the project on track despite a tight schedule.
• Coordination with architectural room layouts directly from the model, eliminating errors due to transcribing from paper-based layout sheets.

The use of BIM allowed us to obtain critical information from the architect’s model and to coordinate between trades. At key client meetings, this technology also enabled the client and design team to visualise the end result.