Location: Cardiff
Access Value: Confidential
As part of the rapid response to the United Kingdom’s Covid-19 pandemic, a temporary Hospital was created in Cardiff to service the Welsh population. Within 10 days the first 300 of a potential 2,000 beds were made available.
Upon completion the 2,000-bed capacity hospital included mobile x-ray units, CT scanners, a pharmacy, and an end-of-life pathway of care for people in the last weeks or days of their life.
Over 15,000m2 of tented, temperature air-conditioned hospital space was created including elevated wards on large raised modular scaffold platforms. We constructed an additional three tents built on scaffold 3.5m(H) measuring 100m (L) x10 (W) each. To put the size and scale into context, the main field tented structure was eight times the size of Glastonbury’s main stage! There was 11km of panels used for bed heads and screening, 150km of electrical cabling, 61km of IT cable, 44 new toilets, 300 additional sinks, 120 tonnes of oxygen supply, 55 Arctics of Scaffold and enough temporary power to run 11,000 homes.
One of the biggest build challenges involved installing the new required oxygen, water, sanitary, power and HVAC services into the playing pitch area. In particular heating and cooling was a mechanical and engineering challenge with very large, complex ventilation ducting networks designed within days.
Extensive rigging experience allowed for the hanging of the extremely large steel supply ducting from the stadium’s regular roof truss, all to free up valuable floor space, combined with running innovative fabric ducts at 2.5m x 2.5m, neatly threaded through the modular scaffold support grid.
We implemented Co-Vid working control measures, which followed the advice of the latest guidelines from NHS and Public Health England/Wales. From the outset, we created a proactive, yet protective stance including an online induction and medical questionnaire prior to site arrival. This was an industry first innovation and has now become common place across all industries.
