In September 2009 MTX were awarded the contract to design and build a new three-storey modular extension for the Walton Centre NHS Foundation Trust in Liverpool.
Part of the UK’s only standalone neurosciences hospital for neurological patients, the new building, built to house consultant offices, changing accommodation and training rooms, is situated neatly within a three-sided courtyard surrounded by the hospital’s critical care unit (CCU), high dependency unit (HDU) and outpatient clinics.
Due to the limited space available, the Project Team, which included the Trusts’ chosen Architects Gilling Dod, decided to utilise an existing courtyard and specified the use of modular off site construction methods in order to minimise noise, vibration and other construction disturbance. It was also stipulated that the new extension would be built to look ‘identical’ to the existing traditionally-built hospital building and must ‘not look or feel like a modular installation, externally or internally’.
Despite significant challenges due to the tight location, restricted access and close proximity of ‘live’ patient areas, the extension was successfully completed on time and within budget in just 17 weeks. The Trust occupied the ground floor staff area and changing rooms four weeks ahead of schedule, in January 2010.
A ‘delighted’ Trust praised MTX for its bespoke approach to modular construction and the internal and external finish of the building which the Trust said ‘has exceeded our expectations in terms of how well it matches the original building’. The project has also, they added, delivered ‘cost and time benefits which would have been difficult to achieve with a more traditional construction method’.
