Summary
Roughan & O’Donovan is providing full civil, structural and traffic engineering services for an 80-bed community nursing unit (CNU) on the site of the Sheil hospital in Ballyshannon, Co. Donegal.
The wider project team includes Rhatigan Architects, Varming Consulting Engineers (mechanical and electrical) and Turner & Townsend (quantity surveyors). The main contractor is Letterkenny-based Boyle Construction Ltd. The employer is the Health Services Executive (North-West).
The project has a 24-month construction programme and is due to be completed in 2022.
Solution
The scheme consists of a modern extension to Sheil Hospital, with associated car parking and site services, and the design of a dual carriageway southern link road to provide a new entrance to the hospital and ease local traffic congestion. The new road required liaison with Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) for works interfacing with Aodh Rua bridge over the N15 and ESB Fisheries regarding land take for the road embankment.
In terms of accommodation, the development provides for 66 single bedrooms and 7 twin bedrooms in a combination of long stay, short stay and specialist dementia wards. Upgrades to the existing hospital building will enable day hospital and other ancillary services to be provided.
The building was designed to achieve best practice in sustainability and building energy consumption. SuDS measures incorporated in the design include surface water attenuation and a green roof.
Challenges
Sheil hospital is a 3-storey listed building dating from the 19th century. Protecting and retaining the existing character of the building while complementing it with a new modern facility compliant with national standards for health services provided a key challenge for the project team.
The steeply sloping site and the need for drainage consents to the River Erne added further complexity.
To meet these challenges, our buildings team sought and coordinated inputs from the traffic, environmental and geotechnical teams within ROD.
Services provided:
- Structural engineering design
- Civil engineering design
- Traffic engineering
- Planning reports
