Advice for the Review of National Children's Hospital in Dublin

Learning outcomes

LO1 Appreciate the variety of environmental contexts within which construction companies operate

LO2 Understand the importance of briefing the client

LO3 Understand the process of selecting the consultants and the contractor.

LO4 Analyse various procurement strategies of the building process

LO5 Advise on methods of procurement to meet the needs of specific clients/projects and evaluate the available alternatives

LO6 Understand the project management process from inception through to completion

Dublin National Paediatric Hospital Development Board

Once complete in 2022, the new 165,000m² children’s hospital and associated Children’s Research and Innovation Centre will be heralded as a world class facility for children and young people from all over Ireland, who have complicated and serious illnesses and are in need of specialist and complex care.

At the heart of our competition-winning concept is an oval ward pavilion, set within one of Europe’s largest roof gardens, that gives the hospital an instantly recognisable and friendly identity.

The introduction of the ‘floating garden’ halfway up the building literally elevates the importance of nature and the therapeutic environment, making it a central part of the architecture’s character, quite unlike any other hospital of this size.

The oval’s form alludes to the architecture of Dublin’s best-known civic spaces and buildings, most notably its Georgian squares as well as the nearby Royal Hospital at Kilmainham (Ireland’s oldest hospital, now the Museum of Modern Art), with which the oval is axially aligned. Once the new hospital is complete, there will be open views from the floating garden and the wards towards Kilmainham and Phoenix Park beyond, creating a strong landscape and architectural axis that will ‘ground’ the new building in its context.

3.The assignment tasks

You are consulted by an authority to review the National Children’s Hospital in Dublin.

Following a careful review of the project details, you are required to advise the client on the following. Your recommendation will include:

1-An Analysis of the pre and post contract factors that could have affected the spiralling costs of the project.

2-A comparison and evaluation of the effectiveness of cost control methods that could have helped with cost control throughout the life cycle of the project.

3-A review of conflict resolution methods available to the client.

4-A worked-out example of methods of financial analysis (e.g. NPV and Payback method, whole life cycle costing, etc.) to ensure the client return on investment.

Design Concept

Criteria Issues Mark out of 100 Learning outcomes

Relevant knowledge of key concepts

An Analysis of the pre and post contract factors that could have affected the spiralling costs of the project.

A comparison and evaluation of the effectiveness of cost control methods that could have helped with cost control throughout the life cycle of the project.

A review of conflict resolution methods available to the client.

A worked-out example of methods of financial analysis (e.g. NPV and Payback method, WLCC) to ensure the client return on investment.

Presentation (10 marks) Order, structure and coherence Quality and number of references 10

4.Report Writing

This assignment is expected to be a professionally written report of 3000 (+/- 10%) words.  The marking scheme indicates how different learning outcomes will be assessed.  Your report must aim to directly respond to the brief provided in this document using logical reasoning and evidence. The data that you use in your report must be derived from reliable sources, be factual and up-to-date.

This report is also perceived as an academic report and therefore the use of proper referencing and adequate citation of sources in Harvard style is compulsory.

The report must be checked for English grammar and spelling before final submission on Blackboard as a PDF file.  When submitting your file please follow the saving instructions below:

Student_ID_Module Code_A1_Day.Month.Year.doc

Note: It is important to avoid direct speech including writing in the first person (e.g. I, we, you, etc.). Any abbreviations used in your report must be fully explained.

5.Interim In-Class Feedback

You are advised to discuss your progress with the Module Leader during the tutorial sessions as well as announced (Assignment Support). See Module Study Guide.

Some useful links are suggested below. These are indicative and students must identify other sources to reason their case where and when needed.

Committee members found nothing reasonable about the overspend explanations. They were not placated with ongoing references by Mr Costello to the complexity of the project.

To be fair, it can’t be easy to estimate the final spec for a 6,000-room hospital. As Mr Costello pointed out, it was only when the contractors and the designers started working together that the final financial picture became much much clearer. The process is now at a stage, he said, where all of the risk goes on the contractor, having worked with the design team.”

“They now assume full risk of programme and cost certainty,” he said.

Ironically, Mr Costello also defended the board’s decision to go with a two-stage tendering project rather than the traditional form of tendering, taken in light of “a history of cost overruns on public sector projects”.

Fianna Fáil health spokesperson Stephen Donnelly accused the board of “catastrophic failure”.

How could it be that an original estimate set the cost per sq m of the new hospital at €2,500 back in 2014, and now, going into 2019, it’s at €6,500 per sq m?

“How is it conceivable that you are managing a project where an Irish person will have to pay twice as much per bed as any other children’s hospital in the world?” Mr Donnelly asked.

Committee chair, Independent TD Michael Harty, said the premium was “too high”. “The premium is every other health project will be set back,” he said, eg the National Rehabilitation Hospital, the building of elective-only hospitals, primary care centres.

Mr Costello said the premium behind a fully digital hospital “is enormous” and that “at the beginning, the complexities of design were not appreciated”.