The challenge

The global health emergency situation, caused by COVID-19, has made organizations face new challenges at top speed. With the aim of increasing the care capacity of its health system, the Catalan Health Service decided to launch 5 new multipurpose hospitals, one of them in Sant Joan Despí in Barcelona.

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Due to the emergency, the project was developed from scratch in a period of 20 weeks thanks to the innovative design of the building that is characterized by an external metal structure without pillars inside.

In addition, the development of the project followed the Lean Construction methodology, which allows to maximize the efficiency of the processes by optimizing the activities that add value to the project and minimizing wasted time. It was designed in BIM (Building Information Modeling) to centralize and view all project information in 3D during the design and execution phase, allowing the external prefabrication of a large part of the equipment.

The design of equipment such as mobile turrets, adaptable to the needs of COVID-19 patients, was also  a key part of the proposal for the hospital. Each ICU bed has its medicinal gas intake points and a negative environmental pressure system.

Results

The hospital has 4 floors and an area of ​​4,643m2. It has 4 isolation ICU boxes and 52 ICU beds for critical patients.

The beds are distributed in 4 totally independent and autonomous spaces. The building is designed with a multipurpose and flexible three-storey structure designed to quickly adapt it to other uses when the health pressure decreases. In the event of an increase in cases, the plants will be able to convert their beds into ICUs in just 24 hours.

The facilities of the new hospital have the ISO 7 certification, facing in a more efficient and safe way the increase in acute cases.