KMAI is the lead architect on a design-build team creating a new space dedicated for Organ Regeneration at Toronto General Hospital (TGH). UHN is the world's largest lung transplant centre and has created new medical technology, Ex Vivo LungPerfusion System, to repair and transplant damaged donor organs. The Organ Regeneration Lab would allow organ perfusion specialists to apply their technology to treat organs before transplant.
The project involved modifying the current floor plan, including renovating an existing Operation Room Suite and retrofitting andmoving existing rooms such as perfusion, anesthesia, Rotem, and several offices. During this renovation, the OR Suite was still fullyfunctional with 19+ operation rooms functioning 24/7. Working together, the project team has configured the project schedule to have a minimal impact on the existing and functioning spaces around it. Laser scanning, design requirement revisions, permit and construction documentation, and CA services have been provided by KMAI thus far. The project is a design build with Dineen Construction.
To provide value engineering where possible, the team salvaged material from reworked areas for reuse within commonspaces to remain (i.e. corridor for existing patching and repair). This also involved the relocation of a large roof top unit to takeadvantage of an existing abandoned roof top support structure on adjacent lower roof structure.
Unique Problem Solving
The ceiling height of the ORL spaces are low and the Design-Build team worked with the medicalequipment supplier/manufacturer to reduce the ceiling space required for several lighting and equipment booms and maintain adequate clearance under the booms for staff. All existing mechanical service passing through the space was rerouted and reworked to provide as much clearance as possible for the new HVAC work and to allow the possibility of increasing the ceiling height. We are currently working with the medical manufacturer to have increased flexibility in the mounting shaft height for the booms. Additionally, service connections were to be redesigned to limit the number of shutdowns when electrical work had to be connected as several of the affected areas had their functions modified to deal with increasing COVID patients. For example, some feeds were connected to a parking lot feed to ensure 24/7 operation of critical hospital spaces.
Lessons Learned
Early in the construction phase, the construction team attempted to relocate an ice machine, assuming the process would be simple. Although existing conditions were reviewed, when the actual mechanical and electrical trades started to work on-site they found access was more complicated than expected and interferences greatly limited their ability to perform the work. The lesson learned is to bring trades early in the design phase to assess and validate the constructability of plans.
Team:
Architect: Kearns Mancini
Mechanical and Electrical: Quasar Consulting Group Ltd.
Structural: WSP
Photography: Tom Ridout
Project Team: Keith Button, Peter Ng, Tayyab Faheem
