£350m hospital was due to open next spring
A new hospital in south Wales designed by BDP to help tackle the coronavirus pandemic will open a year earlier than planned.
Built by Laing O’Rourke, the Grange University Hospital, a new specialist and critical care centre in Gwent, is set to temporarily open this month.
The £350m scheme at Llanfrechfa, near Cwmbran, north of Newport, was due to officially open next spring but the hospital’s board announced recently it would open 350 beds this month.
Adrian Hitchcock, lead architect for the project at BDP, said: “Our design concept means the hospital is divided into three distinct zones, which can be progressed with a degree of autonomy from one another.
“Together with the extensive adoption of off-site fabrication and Laing O’Rourke’s exemplary construction management and delivery, this approach has helped to make early opening possible.”
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Welsh health minister Vaughan Gething approved immediate funding of up to £10m to speed up construction of sections of the facility.
BDP, which worked on the emergency facility at the ExCeL in east London, is also the lead architect at the NHS Nightingale complex at Harrogate, North Yorkshire, and a number of other coronavirus surge hospitals.
The Welsh government has annnounced plans for a number of temporary hospitals in response to the covid-19 pandemic.
Kier is converting a former film studio in Swansea, while Vinci will build temporary Rainbow Hospitals at Deeside Leisure Centre and Bangor University as part of its IHP joint venture with Sir Robert McAlpine.
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