The Challenge
For Cygnet Hospital, Syntegral’s appointment started at Stage 4, with a review of the Stage 3 works prepared by the previous consultants. The hospital is run by independent provider Cygnet Healthcare, which works in partnership with the NHS and local authorities. The building includes a 16-bed Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) plus a 33-bed rehabilitation service which has the aim of providing service users for independent living in the community once they leave the PICU. This includes a seven-bed ‘Transitional Living Unit’ where users have their own facilities for washing and cooking.
The client has moved from highly serviced buildings with full comfort cooling to an approach more orientated towards natural ventilation.
The Solution
Tolerances in the design became challenging when the structure, M&E Services, and architecture fought for space, and BIM was employed to help alleviate this.
There was a significant amount of plant to get through the steel frame. It was a challenge however, using BIM helped enormously. The structure, architecture and M&E Services were modelled in Revit so that they could all be aligned together.
