Manteena was engaged by Aspen Medical under a D&C Contract to deliver a 1,700sqm 51-bed medical facility for the ACT Government, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Within 7 days of the initial engagement, the design team had a preliminary design for which the packages of work could be tendered. In a highly flexible arrangement with the design team and engineers, the design was finessed throughout the build period to accommodate the client’s specific needs.

Coordination of services and trades onsite was the biggest obstacle to overcome. Manteena achieved this via the pre-fabrication of many elements offsite as space and time to build was limited. The prefabricated items included: bathrooms, wall systems, wall frames and roof trusses.

Working day and night shifts the team had upwards of 130 contractors on-site and completed 22,000 man hours.

Manteena’s safety system and COVID-19 social distancing rules were applied to this project. Despite the large volume of workers on site, lost time injuries for the project were minimal at just 3 minor occurrences.

The relationship with Aspen Medical and with Manteena was highly collaborative. This enabled the decision-making process to proceed unimpeded with the main objective of fast track delivery of a world standard medical facility always at the forefront of everyone’s mind.

The team achieved practical completion after a build period of just 36 days—not only achieving the goal of a very, very tight program but built to Australian standards and infection control.