Alder Hey Children’s Hospital and Axis Flo-Motion® Doors

Most people have firm ideas of what a hospital is like. But the team designing the

new Children’s Hospital at Alder Hey in Liverpool put all pre-conceptions aside and

determined to design something genuinely new, radical and patient friendly. Even the

name “Hospital” wasn’t good enough. They designed a “Health Park” where the

hospital is integrated into its parkland surroundings and the community it serves.

The final design, part of a PFI process, came from a consortium of John Laing, Laing

O’Rourke, Interserve and BDP Architects although they were inspired by a drawing

by 15 year old Eleanor Brogan following one of the NHS’s biggest ever public

consultations. Peter Ward, John Laing's director of healthcare projects explained "We

wanted a hospital that felt so different to visiting a 'normal hospital', to look like a

really exciting building as well as integrating with a park in a way that no other

hospital has ever done. The first decision was to put all the 'hot' stuff – accident and

emergency, surgery departments and so on, on the lower floors, leading into an

atrium that forms the heart of the hospital, which is a big open space, full of visually

interesting things for children like a tree-house and beams like the ribs of a dinosaur."

Three quarters of patients will be in single rooms rather than the 18 bed Nightingale

wards of the old Alder Hey Hospital and there’s an outdoor balcony overlooking the

park on each floor. The importance of light and airiness was absolutely vital to the

whole design concept and this meant the doors for each of the patient’s rooms had to

be very special. Each had to be large for ease of access for beds and equipment,

glazed for brightness and airiness, have privacy blinds for examinations or just

occasional solitude, and finally they had to be easily opened and closed - by a child.

One or two of these features can be achieved by door suppliers without too many

problems but finding a door that met them all was a major project. They also

specified that most of the doors would have to be manually operated as automatics

would create their own problems of power supplies, battery back-ups, fire alarm

linkage and tying in with the Building Management System. Whilst that may be

relatively simple for a handful of doors it was prohibitively expensive for over 200

doors of this size and specification and potential issues of reliability and maintenance

could be anticipated.

After an extensive search, only one company came up with an effective, practical

solution and that was Axis Automatic Entrance Systems Limited based in

Northampton. In fairness, doors up to 1800mm wide and 2700mm high are not that

excessive, even for glazed doors. However, the Venetian blinds had to be integrated

into the doors for infection control and to avoid expensive cleaning and maintenance.

So these were sealed between two panes of glass with magnetic controls to avoid an

“infection bridge” into the glazing gap. That just left the problem of opening and

closing with some of the doors now weighing up to 160kg each.

At this point Axis turned to Accuride International, also based in Northampton, and

together they developed the sliding mechanism for what has become the Axis Flo-

Motion® Door System. Using re-circulating ball guides on a special low resistance

linear track, the doors slide so easily that an ingenious damper had to be designed to

absorb the energy of the heavy doors so they did not slam into the end of the track.

The door sets are fabricated using extruded aluminium profiles and include a self

supporting “goal post” frame.

Each sliding door is operated with minimal effort using fingertip control on back to

back nylon handles. A maximum of 22N had been specified as the opening or

closing force required and actual testing of the doors in situ showed them all to be

well under that figure with an average of less than 10N. An astonishing performance

for doors of this size and weight.

David Houghton, NHS Health Park

Project Manager at Alder Hey said

“The extra-large, easy opening,

glazed sliding doors have

transformed the way single rooms

work to deliver healthcare with a

choice of privacy or social

interaction when required without

the loss of clinical observation.”

In recognition of the professional and imaginative response by Axis to the door

design brief, main contractor Laing O’Rourke presented Axis Managing Director Rob

Brunero with their Northern Innovation Award. Rob said “I’m really proud of the whole

team at Axis not just for the development of these doors but also the installation

programme which went pretty smoothly and finished on time. Our colleagues at

Accuride have been excellent too with their expertise in sliding mechanisms and their

enthusiasm and willingness to help.”

As well as the 200+ manual Flo-Motion® doors, Axis also installed 11 large Manusa

automatic doors with hermetic seals for infection control. Just as with the manual

doors, the design required very large double glazed doors nearly 2.5 metres high with

double glazed units incorporating integral blinds. And to add a further complication

the doors need two opening modes. One option is for the doors to open a mere 25%

of their potential movement and then close after a time delay of 10 seconds.

Alternatively this cycle can be interrupted by a command for the door to open fully.

This enables staff to slip in and out of the room without exposing the full open

doorway. However, the door can be fully opened when moving beds or equipment

and so has the flexibility of a manual door but with full automatic power assistance.

A seal housed in an

aluminium profile and

shaped to suit the floor

guides was fitted to the

bottom of the doors. In order

to create the hermetic seal,

as the door closes it drops

10mm and goes in 10mm

with the guides assisting with

the alignment to form the

seal. A perimeter frame with seal was then fitted around the door opening (sides and

top) so when the door reaches the fully closed position, it becomes totally sealed.

For further information please contact Axis Automatic Entrance Systems on

01604 212500, email sales@axisautomatic.co.uk or visit www.axisautomatic.co.uk