A NEW PRIVATE HOSPITAL FOR WAIKATO

If tests show that they are, one solution would
be to excavate a 6m deep trench around the
boundary and lower pre-cast concrete panels
120mm thick into the trench, grouting the
joints together.”
The design team consisted of Blair
Currie and Alan Park from Holmes, and Paul
Overdevest and Richard Hill from Chow:Hill
Architects Ltd. Beca Carter Hollings & Ferner
Ltd concentrated on the building services.
They all became strong advocates of using
structural steel for this project.
“Key to the success of the project,” says
Richard Hill, “was the need to take advantage
of good autumn weather and complete a
structure that was weatherproof. This was
essential for the intense and complex fit out
that a hospital requires. Speed was of the
essence, and the off-site fabrication done by
Auckland Steel Limited ensured high quality
control in a factory environment. Deliveries
to the site were programmed to maintain
maximum momentum for erection and
enclosure. And the swift integration of the
Corus-supplied Comflor 210 steel decking
system kept up the tempo.
Far left: An artist’s impression.
Left top: The new hospital will occupy a high profile
position at the corner of State Highway 1 and
Ohaupo Road.
Left: Comflor 210 was selected for the composite
steel decking system because of its spanning
capability.
Below: Auckland Steel fabricated and erected the
structural steel.
The isometric drawing
shows the complexity of the
structure but at the end of the
day only 240 tonnes of structural
steel were used.
“From an architectural
perspective,” adds Richard, “the steel
frame enabled us to design a building
whose low structural volume made minimum
impact on the space. It also afforded
tremendous freedom for the installation of
services and provided something crucial
to hospital operations: adaptability. The
healthcare service delivery processes in
hospitals are continuously subject to change;
invariably these changes are technology
driven. Steel affords Braemar Hospital a high
degree of latent future-proofing.”
There was another reason that steel was
preferred; its lightness meant that foundation
settlement issues were mitigated. Blair Currie
again: “Designing for fast erection, we really
had to forward plan exactly how it was all
going to go together: Universal Columns
were fabricated to full height and arrived on
site ready to receive floor beams via bolted
connections at economical locations. This
allowed the structural steel to be erected
with limited site welding. The building’s
lateral bracing is via a ductile structural steel
frame system in one direction and ductile
eccentrically braced K-frames in the other
direction. To maximise the ceiling cavity
space while keeping the floor to floor height
as small as possible, we designed the steel
floor beams to be encased in the floor slab.
Comflor 210 was specified over Comflor 80
because of its greater spanning capability
from beam to beam. Large areas of clear span
floor space were dictated by the hospital’s
operational needs.”
As yet there is no rating system in
New Zealand that can gauge the sustainability
of the hospital’s construction, but Chow:Hill
Architects have engaged e Cubed Building
Workshop Ltd to compare it with models
in Australia. From the initial design stage,
building form, orientation and detailing
responded to ESD (Environmentally
Sustainable Design) principles. On site, skips
are used to sort and manage waste materials
such as paper, plastic and timber. Suffice it to
say that this complex, purpose-built hospital
has been designed with an eye on achieving a
good sustainability rating.
scnz 7