Kingston Hospital Mental Health Assessment Unit

Design ID provided the structural and civil design for a dedicated £3.4m Mental Health Assessment Unit (MHAU) at Kingston Hospital in London. A volumetric modular solution was identified as the most suitable structural concept for the development to align with the hospital’s existing constraints and requirements. The building superstructure and foundations we designed taking future flexibility into account whilst aligning with current HTM guidance.

Two-storeys of open-plan space were installed over a new basement box, with a future allowance for an additional storey, should demand for treatment space increase. Design ID worked closely with the architect to ensure a spacious and calm environment was created for the patients, with limited internal columns within the floor to create spacious open-plan areas and ensure room layouts could be rearranged in the future without the need for major structural modifications. Longspan module beams were designed to create the flexible space. Design ID’s standardisation of the 21 modules assisted in compressing the factory assembly period and overall construction programme by minimising the number of unique members and steel connections. Further to the potential of future adaptation and expansion, Design ID were appointed to ensure robustness in the partition walls due to the nature of the development. As a result the unit provides secure office space over a calm and safe environment for the assessment and treatment of patients with mental health issues.

With the proposed building connected to the hospital’s Emergency Department (ED) via a traditionally designed link corridor, site traffic, module delivery times and material storage had to be considered to maintain the emergency blue light route and ambulance parking immediately adjacent to the development. A reinforced concrete upstand wall was designed around the ambulance parking to take vehicle impact. Whilst the modules were being fabricated, the groundworks progressed with a reinforced concrete box designed to retain the sloping ground across the site and provide a landing platform for the rapid delivery and install of the bays. Coordination with the design team here was paramount, to keep module deliveries to as shorter timeframe as possible and eliminate any disruption to the live hospital. Design ID worked closely with the architect and MEP engineer to coordinate floor to ceiling heights (and maintain transport/lifting constraints) whilst designing a bespoke module at roof level to house specific plant required for the unit. The benefits of BIM and clash detection ensured that any services could be coordinated early on within the 3D modelling space which ensured a seamless integration as part of the fit out.