Cynon Valley Primary Care Centre (PCC)
1 / Introduction
This £78.9m self-contained 140-bed neighbourhood hospital resting between the Merthyr and Rhondda Valleys replaces the outdated facilities at Mountain Ash and Aberdare hospitals. Designed to incorporate an extensive range of sustainable features, Cynon Valley has the lowest possible carbon footprint for a building of its kind.
The hospital needed to bridge the gap between a primary care facility and a full district hospital for this historic area. It provides an extensive range of services including emergency response, inpatient, outpatient, rehabilitation, palliative care, children’s care, maternity, radiology, mental health and minor surgery. As well as meeting these requirements, Cwm Taf NHS Trust had stringent carbon reduction targets that required a range of alternative energy solutions to ensure as much use of renewable energy as possible.
Buro Happold’s building services and sustainable design teams enabled the Cwm Taf NHS Trust to meet its carbon reduction goal with a huge range of alternative energy solutions including a ground-source CHP and biomass boilers using a reliable local source of woodchip. This meets the full base load of the building ensuring maximum use of renewable energy. We have also incorporated options for the use of solar panels in the future to further power the 20,000m2 development.
While providing as much sustainable energy as possible for the hospital, our integrated approach has ensured the availability of plenty of daylight and natural ventilation. This realises the architect’s design vision in providing added value for both patients and client by providing a pleasant atmosphere conducive to patient recuperation and staff efficiency. It also reduces the need for mechanical ventilation and artificial lighting.
Our engineers exposed thermal mass in many wards to create a more comfortable atmosphere for all users, moderating summer temperatures while transforming the space to feel more open and less institutional. This was a highly innovative solution in a hospital context, where our studies proved that the risk of infection from the soffits is minimal and so the proposal was adopted. Cynon Valley is one of the first hospitals in the UK to use this method, which is energy-efficient, cost-effective and practical.
Working with the architect to keep the building as low-rise as possible, we also designed a subway services duct which lowered the overall height of the building by moving much of the building service provision underground.
Cynon Valley is anticipated to be well within the Government’s energy targets for healthcare buildings. The hospital has been awarded an AEDET (pre-BREEAM Healthcare) ‘Excellent’ rating. Collaborating across the design team to achieve the optimum balance between cost-effective design and energy-saving measures, Buro Happold has ultimately allowed the Trust to invest more inpatient care by reducing energy bills, while playing our part in delivering a state of the art yet pragmatically designed hospital.
Key facts
- New primary healthcare facility in the Welsh Valleys
- Replaces two existing outdated hospitals
- Lowest possible carbon footprint for hospital building
- AEDET ‘Excellent’ rating
