First modular hospital delivered to remote NSW
Stantec have shaped the healthcare industry by delivering New South Wales’ first modular hospital for the Broken Hill Community Health Centre.
07/24/2019 BROKEN HILL, NEW SOUTH WALES
Based on the compelling benefits to build and manage space faster and the increasing trend in popularity towards modular design, Stantec's Electrical, Mechanical and Acoustics teams were integral in delivering the new integrated community health centre in remote Broken Hill, constructed from 42 individual modular components, provides a five-chair dental health facility, together with child, family and community services.
Meisha Stevens, Acoustic Project Engineer at Stantec said the overall redevelopment of Broken Hill Community Health Centre modernised the existing facilities of the centre, and now provides the local community with access to first-class health services.
The building, a dental and family health clinic facility, is off-site from the actual Broken Hill Hospital and includes many clinical spaces and consultations rooms on the ground floor, with offices all along the second floor.
“Stantec's Acoustics team successfully resolved issues in achieving enough noise and vibration isolation between the offices and medical spaces below. Our Mechanical and Electrical Engineering services also rose to the challenge in designing the modular construction and coordinating breaks in ductwork and cable trays,” says Meisha.
Broken Hill’s remote location, together with the lack of labourers and skilled builders on sight lead to the modular being constructed at Hutchies’ Toowoomba Modular Yard and then transported by road some 1386km.
“Constructing a development in a regional or remote location often leads to increased labour charges, material supply elongation and sometimes results quality issues. However, having the modules constructed offsite and then transported directly to Crystal Street in Broken Hill once complete, offered significant cost and time savings with accelerated building time in Toowoomba, limiting the amount of time workers had to commute to Broken Hill during construction.
“The project included achieving the stringent NSW HI ESG in a lightweight building construction and navigating the partially finished services and partitions while in modules. Equally important, was site inspections during the final stages when the modules came together on site and the final joins were made,” said Meisha.
Stantec offers clients extensive modular design experience and are pleased to see projects like Broken Hill Hospital utilising the modular as a commercially viable solution.
