Alder Hey Hospital
Following one of the NHS’ largest ever public consultations, Alder Hey Children’s Hospital underwent a complete re-design, challenging all pre-conceptions of what hospitals are like. Light and airiness was essential to the entire concept, meaning the choice of doors was vital. Each one needed to be large enough to allow access for beds and equipment, glazed to allow natural light penetration, fitted with blinds for privacy, and able to be operated by a child.
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A feat of engineering
Many doors on the market were easily able to meet some of these requirements. However, finding a product that offered all of these features was a tall order. The contract was eventually secured by Axis Automatic Entrance Systems, who were commissioned with the installation of over 200 doorsets into the brand new hospital building, making Alder Hey the first hospital in Europe to have sliding glass doors for every room. Axis Automatic needed to design a new header section to help achieve this ambitious plan and approached Kestrel Aluminium Systems to assist with the project.
Working together, the two companies developed the new header section which fulfilled the brief for use with manual sliding doors. Kestrel also added additional lengths of standard sections to allow Axis Automatic to deliver the project on budget and with minimum material wastage, providing significant added value.
Perfectly coordinated
Kestrel worked closely with Axis Automatic to manage the quantity of material required to manufacture this number of doors and to ensure all material was delivered on time. Steven Shute from Kestrel says: “It is exciting for us to see customers deliver projects like Alder Hey and we thoroughly enjoy opportunities to work with our customers to achieve the best outcome for all involved”.
Axis Automatic Entrance Systems was presented with an Innovation Award by Laing O’Rourke North in recognition of their development of this type of manual sliding doorset. A maximum of 22.5 N had been specified as the opening or closing force for the doors, but Axis Automatic managed to deliver a doorset with a force of 10.1N, a great achievement for the Northampton based company and a very special project for Kestrel Aluminium Systems to be involved in.