A new, fast-track built, medical records and IT building at Bath’s Royal United Hospital (RUH) – see artist’s impression – will be the UK’s first medical facility to harness a building system developed by a Bath architectural practice based around a ‘quick-to-engineer-and-build skeleton’, pre-cast concrete ‘plank’ floors, and a flat internal soffit, said to enable many buildings’ completion in ‘half the time of conventional construction methods’.
Named ‘Öppen’, the Swedish word for ‘open’, the system is said by its inventors, Nick Stubbs and John Rich, partners at the Stubbs Rich architectural practice, to allow buildings to be ‘tailored to a wide range of uses, yet individual and designed according to the user’s requirements’, and to be easily modifiable internally in the future. It is being introduced in the UK – where the developers identified that per square metre construction costs remain ‘significantly higher’ than in many other European countries – by Öppen UK, led by managing director, Cliff Dare FRICS. A start date for construction of the new RUH Bath building is awaited, with a 19-week build programme anticipated. John Rich elaborated: “Our aim – and we drew on sectors including retail, office, and research buildings – was for Öppen to deliver adaptable, low-cost, high quality accommodation which could be quickly built, and the internal layout easily changed. The system principally comprises the ‘skeleton’ – common to all users, the ‘skin’, and the interior fit-out.” The ‘skeleton’ is pre-engineered to achieve rapid construction, ‘heavyweight’, for robustness, and designed to accommodate ‘skins’ ranging ‘from brickwork to straw bales’. John Rich added: “As part of the base-build works, the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing services, are connected up. Öppen’s evolution identified straightforward ways of providing the service systems, with ease of adaption achieved via a raised access floor, and a completely flat soffit.” The hot-rolled steel skeleton can support a four-storey building, while the pre-cast floor ‘planks’ require no propping or curing. Roofs are similarly constructed, but sloped for rainwater run-off and collection, while the concrete roof slab brings thermal mass to help cool the building in hot weather, and a substantial insulation board layer reduces heat loss in winter. Öppen added: “Exterior walls are formed from panels ready to receive insulation and a range of cladding. Overall, Öppen delivers a heavyweight, durable building in about half the time of traditional building methods, and costs at least 20% less, while the lack of central columns, and the use of flat soffits, and raised floors, means healthcare buildings can quickly be adapted to meet changing demands.”
