Utilisation of Courtyard space by ModuleCo, formerly PKL Healthcare


Site Utilisation - Courtyards When hospitals have been built in previous decades, there were two underlying design principles to a hospital site. One is to have all buildings one or two storey for easy access to all, and the other is to maximize the amount of natural light getting into hospital buildings by using lots of enclosed courtyard areas. This has resulted in large sprawling hospital estates that can no longer expand outwards into surrounding land.

To increase the hospital facilities, estates managers have to consider better use of their existing estate. Modular buildings are the perfect solution when expanding into an enclosed hospital courtyard. Not only can the use of modular buildings reduce disruption caused to surrounding facilities, but it can also allow the courtyard to be totally filled and link to the existing surrounding buildings at multiple levels.

Emergency Assessment Unit – Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge This 3,000m2 facility was built in a courtyard, 6-storeys high. Some of the lower levels are positioned on top of an existing roof and the building forms an inverted ‘pyramid’ shape, linking to the surrounding buildings on multiple levels. Twin Maternity Theatres – Birmingham Women’s Hospital

				A twin-theatre and two-bed recovery facility that was designed to fit exactly within an existing courtyard area. The installation required a 500 tonne crane with a lifting distance of 80m. When being installed the path of the Pre-Assembled Units in the air was very specific, as they could not be lifted over surrounding occupied buildings, minimizing the disruption to the hospital.

Site Utilisation - Courtyards