The construction of the New Karolinska Solna project (NKS) resulting in a new university hospital is currently underway in Solna, Sweden. When completed, the new university hospital will be home to some of the most advanced hospital facilities in the world. The project is the largest single project in the history of its main contractor, Skanska. The global construction firm Skanska is a Fortune 500 company and one of the world’s leading project development and construction groups.
The project is a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) contract between the Stockholm County Council and Swedish Hospital Partners (SHP). SHP is a project company owned by Skanska and Innisfree. Skanska Healthcare, a joint venture between Skanska Sweden and Skanska UK, is the main contractor.
All together, the project consists of approximately 330,000 square meters. The hospital will include approximately 8,000 rooms, 36 operation rooms and 630 in-patient beds in private, single-patient rooms. Construction began on the site in 2010 and the final construction phase is scheduled to finish by 2018. As part of the PPP agreement, once the construction stage is completed, the project company will continue to manage the project also during the maintenance and facility management stage, which will continue until the year 2040. Reflecting the sheer size of the project, the total contract sum for the construction in the NKS project, discarding hospital equipment, is 14.5 billion SEK.
Skanska relies on MagiCAD
As the main contractor, Skanska is responsible also for the project’s building services systems design and installations. All building services design in the project has been carried out using MagiCAD for AutoCAD with the modules MagiCAD Heating & Piping, Ventilation, Electrical, Room, and Sprinkler Designer.
– The size of the project is considerable, and naturally the design and installation of building services is a large and crucial part of the whole project. With hospitals, there is always a great deal of technology involved, and fitting various different technologies together tends to be a challenge. MagiCAD enabled modelling of all building services, including special systems for medical gases, comments MEP Manager Mikko Lehto from Skanska Finland, one of the coordinators of MEP design and installations in the project who worked onsite from November 2013 to April 2014 as part of Skanska Stretch global leadership program.
– One of the most important benefits of MagiCAD in the project is the amount of information that is transferred and stored within the models, especially when the project model will continue to be used later in the facility management and maintenance stage. You could say that true building information modelling capability is already a very significant benefit in itself.
All building services design in the project was carried out using MagiCAD for AutoCAD.
The New Karolinska Solna (NKS) is a model project in the utilisation of building information modelling (BIM) methods on the construction site. Practical BIM utilisation on the site by the main contractor Skanska and MEP supervisors makes processes more efficient and improves information flow during design, construction and MEP installations tremendously.
– On site, project coordination has been carried out using a composite Navisworks model. When supervisors, managers and engineers have access to the model and drawings via iPads, and the builders and installers are able to use all the important information where and when it is needed, the quality of work is improved and significant amounts of time can be saved as the workers and supervisors do not have to regularly waste their time moving across the enormous construction site just to check something, explains MEP Manager Mikko Lehto from Skanska Finland, one of the coordinators of MEP design and installations in the NKS project who worked onsite from November 2013 to April 2014 as part of Skanska Stretch global leadership program.
– Especially in projects of this magnitude, modelling is the key to examining and verifying plans visually together with architectural and structural models. It also makes project coordination and communication more efficient. The building information models enable us to examine installations that have already been completed, and to verify whether the installations have been made according to design. For example, if a plumber improvises, problems usually surface immediately when the next subcontractor arrives at the scene to install their contribution to the system. This is why, as a rule, all installations in the project were expected to be carried out the same way they had been designed and how they were represented in the BIM model.
– After the construction stage, the models will be updated with the actual as-built information, and the information model objects and their technical data content can be connected directly with product-specific information to better facilitate the maintenance and facility management routines in the later stages.
– The lifecycle aspect of the project also placed additional emphasis on certain aspects of modelling, such as ease of maintenance, which affected the positioning of valves, regulators, cleaning hatches and similar components and equipment to make sure they are accessible. In main risers, for example, the placement of dampers was examined and adjusted to make sure they can be maintained in a safe manner. At the same time, it was ensured that there would be enough space to perform all the necessary maintenance procedures after the building and all the installations are completed.