North Middlesex Hospital Women and Childrens Centre

A major new building was required at North Middlesex University Hospital for a new Women and Children’s Centre. The centre was required to accommodate the increase in maternity patients and around 2,000 additional births in North Middlesex. It forms part of a major reorganisation of hospital services in the boroughs of Barnet, Enfield and Haringey.

The £17.9m contract, which was procured under the ProCure21+ framework, involved the off-site manufacture of the building at the Portakabin Group’s production centre in York. The project was the UK’s largest and most complex modular building project to be built in the health sector.

52 steel-framed Yorkon modules up to 18m long and weighing up to 18.5 tonnes were craned into position in just 28 days. A 500-tonne crane was used for this operation which took place within the hospital grounds and in close proximity to existing facilities that remained in use throughout.

The external appearance of the scheme reflects the design of the adjacent facilities and features rendered façades, ribbon glazing around the perimeter of the first floor, a large atrium entrance spanning two storeys with light wells providing further natural daylight inside.