October 27, 2011

FEATURE | General and Trades Contracting

Renovation project at McMaster University in Hamilton shows challenges of hospital construction

DON PROCTER

correspondent

Scheduling just-in-time deliveries, securing scarce laydown space and completing a comprehensive infection control and asbestos abatement program pitted builders against a four-month construction timeline to complete a renovation at McMaster University.

The contract for the $2.5-million renovation at the McMaster University Medical Centre’s (MUMC) labour and delivery department is the first of a 12,000-square foot, three-phase renovation to provide new units for step-down, intensive care and post-anesthesia care. Also, an expanded infant resuscitation space, and other associated improvements and upgrades are expected. The final phase is scheduled for completion in December.

The first and most difficult phase, completed in April, involved a series of carefully planned stages to minimize hospital disruptions.

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“Sometimes the general contractor (Merit Contractors Niagara) had to change its staging strategy on the fly because of delays in deliveries of some pretty sophisticated (medical) equipment,” points out Joanne McCallum, principal of McCallum Sather Architects Inc., the project’s architect. McCallum Sather organized the staging strategy.

Construction staging is not an unusual responsibility for an architect in hospital renovations, she says. “You have to be very cognizant with the whole construction process if you’re going to develop an appropriate design response, particularly in health care renovations.”

Ian Kowalchuk, Merit’s manager of business development, says McMaster has been a challenging project. “Just finding enough space to work in has been difficult.”

Furthermore, scheduling subcontractors to arrive on site in time for materials deliveries was a juggling act at times, he says. In some cases materials took up to 10 weeks to receive. Headwalls (bed panel walls equipped with medical infrastructure) are a case in point. Nurse station furnishings and wood doors took eight to 10 weeks; electrical lighting six to eight weeks.

The renovations were no snap either. Rather than tear out the existing trough ceiling system, the contractor had to install drywall ceilings below them, leaving little working room to install lighting fixtures and other finishes, Kowalchuk says.

The interstitial levels (spaces between hospital floors that accommodate utility services) encapsulated with asbestos and all existing drywall partitions containing asbestos had to be located and removed prior to renovation. “It was a huge loss of time for us (three to four weeks in phase one) because our workers couldn’t be in the area while abatement was going on.”

It took the builder two to three days to install a temporary enclosure for infection control and asbestos abatement in an area. Air testing was required by a third-party consultant, once asbestos was removed, before the temporary enclosure could be dismantled. The whole process could take a week or so depending on the amount of demolition before abatement operations moved on to another area.

While the interstitial spaces proved an obstacle on one hand, on the other, they helped expedite renovations because new utility servicing such as plumbing and electrical conduit runs could be installed through the spaces without interfering with renovations or hospital operations on above and below floors, he say.

McCallum says hospital renovations like the McMaster job are more common now than they were 10 or so years ago largely because healthcare infrastructure is aging. Also, the building systems and equipment required today are much more sophisticated than their predecessors.

The newly renovated space at the hospital adds more than new equipment and technology to the department, however. Gone is the traditional “institutional look,” replaced by a warm “more homey interior,” points out Andrew Gunn, McCallum Sather Architects’ project architect for the three-phase job.

It is more than just an earthtone paint colour palette that warms up the new space, he says. Lighting plays a big role, as do interior accents, woodgrain linoleum flooring and woodgrain patterned headwalls. Ceiling bulkheads, too, are in varied placements. “The idea is to make it more comforting for mothers and their families,” said Gunn.

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