The Immersive Suite, which is used for showcasing the new hospital building at Calderdale Royal Hospital (CRH), was shortlisted for the Best Application of Technology Category at the Digital Construction Awards which were held on Wednesday, 18th March.
Clinical Leads, Dr Mark Davies and Janette Cockroft, have been champions of the Immersive Suite, which is based in the Old Learning Centre. It has been used to show colleagues what the new build will look like and shape the design of key elements of the build, such as ward and room layouts, in real scale.
Despite not winning the category, the Immersive Suite has been valuable in the development and sign off of the final design for the new hospital building at CRH. The Immersive Suite allows people to experience spaces at a 1:1 scale. This not only improves spatial awareness but also encourages meaningful feedback from clinical and non-clinical colleagues.
After the event, Mark said: "The night was great with hundreds of construction projects represented. Looking at some of the projects being celebrated were huge compared with ours - including the Heathrow Airport expansion and Sellafield. Just to be considered and recognised alongside these developments, with budgets in the billions, was a great achievement in itself.
"The depth of engagement and wealth of conversation in the immersive suite significantly exceeded anything I’ve seen before. The technology enables teams to be in the space rather than imagining. It was far easier for colleagues to understand and visualise the space than would otherwise be possible.
"Irrespective of the outcome of the awards, the immersive suite has had a significant impact in supporting us to design an environment that is fit for purpose and improves efficiency."
Laing O’Rourke’s Project Director, Chris Northwood, said: “The immersive suite technology has been providing huge benefits to our clients across our projects. For Calderdale Royal Hospital, we leveraged and further developed that technology with the very specific objective of transforming the NHS stakeholder engagement experience.
“Using the immersive suite has meant we can engage with clinicians in greater detail, showing how the rooms in the new building will look once complete. It gives them the opportunity to explore and better understand the spaces we’re creating, and as a result make better decisions in relation to the design and how they’ll use the building in the years to come.”