By leveraging prefabrication and executing a single 120 t pedestrian bridge lift, the Footscray Hospital project team proved that tight timelines can drive superior engineering outcomes.
When asked to characterise the ambition behind the Footscray Hospital project northwest of the Melbourne CBD, Construction Manager Michaela Jones of Multiplex pointed to its sheer scale.
“There are 16 operating theatres and more than 85,000 pieces of specialist medical equipment, including fittings, fixtures and equipment,” she told create. “All that had to be coordinated with the intricate services that occupy the hospital’s interior spaces that make the buildings function.
“Such complexity is not uncommon for a hospital – but it proved a design and logistical challenge given the scale of the project.”
The new Footscray Hospital was delivered as a public-private partnership by Plenary Health consortium in partnership with the Victorian Health Building Authority, Western Health and Victoria University, with Multiplex as the builder.
The project derived from evolving community needs, according to Project Director Mike King.
“Western Health is now the second-largest health service in Victoria,” he explained. “It’s significant. It’s growing.
“The old hospital was at the end of its life, coming up against problems and limiting the ability of hospital workers to provide services to the community. So the public-private partnership (PPP) covering this project was inspired by a real human need.”
That need has translated into business and engineering success, with the project being nominated as a finalist for the Australian Construction Achievement Award.
So how did the project team wrangle logistical concerns to ensure this project achieved its community service goals laid out since before the design even started?
Planning for the end was the first step
Ten tower cranes were erected and later pulled down safely and without incident, which Jones described as “a feat in itself”.
“This required a huge amount of planning. That’s why the crane placement and removal process was pre-planned from the outset. In fact, considering how we were going to actually take the cranes down was one of our very first steps.
“The logistics were inherent in the design from the start.”
“Consider all the services, the structural steel that supports the equipment, the access panels, the mechanical and HEPA filtration system to make sure the air quality is suitable from an infection control perspective,” Jones said. “If you look inside the ceiling spaces of those theatres, there’s very little room to move, and all of it needed to be planned and coordinated.
“Each individual operating theatre effectively operates within its own airtight compartment, which we needed to get right.”
The pathology department is an example of a logistically complex space, critical to the functionality of the hospital and the broader community, that required particular attention early during the planning process.
Time pressures can lead to better results
The hospital superstructure was fast-tracked, with the early works packages for structure and facade being organised while the design team continued to resolve the interior health planning design solutions.
“We hadn’t fully finished designing all areas internally, but were far enough along to be reasonably stable in our footprint,” Mike King said. “So as structural engineers designed the slabs, we were progressively building as we went along.”
Rather than putting the cart before the horse, this agility to the design and construction interface meant a more efficient build without any adverse impact on building quality or the project’s large workforce of 1500 at peak.
“A PPP requires a certain speed to a project’s timeline. And in many ways, the more efficient the program, the better.”
Precast solves problems before they happen
This speed of construction would have been severely impacted if the entire structure had to be built onsite.
“We had a number of V-columns that are showcased in some of the hospital’s public spaces,” Jones said. “They span a number of floors. Each uses a complex precast node. We had huge amounts of temporary framing and steel work supporting those as they went up, but it meant we didn’t have to pour them in situ which saved a significant amount of time and made for a much safer installation.”
A pedestrian bridge, spanning Ballarat Road and connecting the hospital to Victoria University, was partly prefabricated before being fully assembled onsite.
“We had an area, just inside the hoarding on Ballarat Road, focused on completing the assembly of these elements. The goal was to do as much as we physically could before it was lifted into place.
“And we had most of the bridge done by that point, with the exception of some of the glazing and obviously the screed inside the on the actual floor itself. It was then able to be lifted in a single, 120 t lift.”
Patients were moved in a single day
To cap off the challenges, all works needed to be completed on time – with more than 500 acceptance tests being witnessed and reviewed by multiple parties – for the facility to open at the same time as the Old Footscray Hospital closed on 18 February.
Due to extensive planning, a total of 122 patients were successfully transferred to the new hospital within a 10-hour period, while approximately 1200m³ of existing medical equipment were transferred over 12 days, based on level of acuity.
“The result was a seamless hospital opening and a testament to all involved,” King said.
The hospital, the state’s largest ever public health infrastructure project, boasts:
- A total area of 192,000 m²
- Around 4500 staff
- 500 inpatient beds (once fully operational) and the capacity to treat an additional 15,000 patients and support up to 20,000 more emergency presentations each year
- More than 400 patient care spaces, from consulting rooms to intensive care areas
Overall, the project involved:
- 10 tower cranes safely installed and removed
- 1500 workforce peak who worked more than 7.1 million work hours
- 63,000 m³ of concrete (equivalent to 25 Olympic swimming pools)
- More than 5000 complex air tight facade panels
- More than 90,000 m² of vinyl (equivalent to nearly five MCGs)
- More than 55,000 plants
Orchestrated effect
The moral of the story is that all elements need to work in conjunction with each other.
“The design, the engineering services, the construction methodology and sequencing, the commissioning of the building, ICT and complex medical equipment, the clinical workflows and end-to-end functionality – all required close alignment to successfully achieve the Hospital’s ‘go live’ goal,” King said.
“It’s a story of communication and having enough knowledge of technology to actually plan and sequence these works out in an effective and efficient way.”
Check out the full list of finalists for the Australian Construction Achievement Award.