Location: London, UK
Client: NHS England
Completion: 2020

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, BDP architects and engineers worked with clinicians, consultants, contractors and the British Army to quickly design and develop an emergency field hospital that would also become the prototype for other such facilities across the UK and potentially around the world. Within just 9 days the team transformed the ExCel Conference Centre into a hospital with 500 fully-equipped beds that could be easily expanded to 4,000 beds. To create a functioning hospital so quickly, we relied on the building's existing elements and prepared simple plans that were made open source. The wards are linked with a temporary tunnel, which staff utilize to move between ICU wards, and to don and doff PPE equipment, which is key to infection control.