Start of Transcript
MUSIC
Alex
At the end of 2019 the Coronavirus pandemic began its global take-over.
Jane
The world had to react fast to try and stop the spread.
Steve Cundall
It was literally overnight.
It was all about how quickly people can mobilise. You imagine that, at the start of the pandemic, it was about how quickly we could get the project up and running and then being used at the start of the pandemic.
Alex
The project was a megalab, first announced a few months after the outbreak of the virus, large enough to cope with never before seen testing requirements.
Jane
Because in January 2020, scientists analysed and published the virus genome, allowing the world’s best laboratories to develop tests that could quickly detect it.
Alex
Testing became a fundamental strategy for protecting people and slowing the spread of the virus.
Jane
But to do this the UK needed more lab space – fast.
Steve Cundall
Everybody understood the importance of the project and everybody understood how quickly we needed to deliver. And everybody just bought into it. Everybody just bought into it. And everybody did what they needed to do.
Jane
The team knew that this project would be complicated… intricate… and it would need to be developed as quickly as possible…
Steve Blake
We realised pretty soon we would need to overlap planning, design, construction, and operation.
Alex
Building the megalab relied on the successful placement of a series of moving parts, each of which was vital to the completion of every level of the project. All under enormous time pressure.
Jane
Like a game of Tetris - but with lives at stake.
MUSIC: music stops suddenly
Hello & Welcome
MUSIC: opening music
Jane
Hello and welcome to Engineering Matters, I’m Jane Sophia, I’m Alex Conacher and for this episode we’ve partnered with WSP to talk about the design, construction and operation of the UK’s first COVID19 megalab - the Rosalind Franklin Laboratory, which was at the heart of its pandemic testing infrastructure.
Alex
Mace project director Steve Cundall has explained just how critical the project was and, as a project that relied on the efforts of lots of different experts, we also spoke to designer WSP, architect HOK, and the UK Health Security Agency which owns and runs the Rosalind Franklin laboratory.
Alex
As an internationally renowned British experimentalist, Rosalind Franklin’s research saved lives and changed the way we see DNA.
Jane
For she was the person who took Photo 51, the first clear picture of DNA, and later worked out the complex structure of a virus.
Alex
Having received no credit for her work in her lifetime, Rosalind has only recently gained the renown she truly deserves.
Jane
We cannot know what understanding of viruses we would have had without her, but the work she did proved instrumental both in the 1950s and more recently in the Covid-19 pandemic.
Alex
By providing us with the necessary knowledge to understand a virus, her legacy lives on in the vaccines and testing we see today. It is in her honour that the laboratory we will look at in this episode was named.
Jane
Simply speaking, a lab is where sample testing can be undertaken to provide objective analytical data.
Steve Cundall
People talk about it being a Covid lab but at the end of the day, it’s a lab and there’s a lack of good lab space in the UK.
Steve Cundall
And Rosalind Franklin can provide that to both the public and private sector.
Alex
So although it was built for the most recent pandemic it is now a critical piece of infrastructure built specifically for large scale testing
Steve Cundall
Certainly, the uses of the lab are endless going forward.
Alex
While the lighthouse labs, a mix of NHS, university, and private labs were doing a good job, with approximately 600,000 tests per day possible, they didn’t have the necessary capacity for the country.
Jane
Many individual labs had a capacity of twenty to a hundred thousand tests a day.
Alex
Rosalind Franklin was a scaled-up version, capable of achieving up to 200,000 tests a day.
Jane
But you can’t just whack a few test tubes in a building and call it a lab.
Alex
Many, many complex requirements had to be considered first.
Steve Blake
It was reasonably clear at the beginning of the project, what the workflow looked like. But what wasn't clear was what kind of site we would need, and what the priorities would be. So those emerged during those initial stages of initiating the project, particularly around the logistics.
Jane
And time was critical.
Gary
We came up with this kind of mantra that, really whatever took a year in a normal construction had to be done in a month. And anything in a month had to be done in a week. And then everything in a week had to be done in a day.
Alex
That was Gary Clark,
Gary
I'm Head of Science Technology at the London studio HOK.
Jane
Other logistical requirements included the delivery and storage of the various materials and reagents needed. Steve Blake is the director of laboratories for the organisation which owns and operates the lab, The UK HSA.
Steve Blake
We've built into a warehouse and what warehouses are great at is being designed for logistics i.e. transport lorries arriving day and night, so they're in an area, you know, not next to housing.
Alex
On an industrial estate, with the nearest housing a little less than half a mile away.
Steve Blake
So if you've got a delivery at two o'clock in the morning it doesn't bother anyone, that it can take vehicles of different sizes including articulated lorries.
Alex
And all that with a potential workforce of up to 1,000 people, and the capability to extend to 2,000 on a site running 24/7…
Steve Blake
So this is quite people intensive work.
Jane
But situated on an industrial estate, there aren’t many local conveniences like shops, necessitating the inclusion of an onsite canteen.
Alex
It was important to ensure their employees’ safety alongside mitigating the risk of contamination.
Steve Blake
Some of the design and build considerations are about…
Steve Blake
…the general amount of resilience built into the site…
Steve Blake
…making sure that if we have a power cut, we've got backup generators.
Jane
And it needed a central location.
Helen
Leamington Spa was the preferred location, you're so close to lots of universities, you need lots and lots of clever people.
Helen Buckingham was the design manager for WS .
Helen
So it was sort of the melting pot of the transport links, the tapping into universities locally, that we'd be able to build the teams because we're building three projects in one really. I was involved in the infrastructure stream but alongside it, you've got the equipment stream where they were just designing the process and buying the right equipment scientifically. And you've also got the people stream building a team that could then run the legacy laboratory.
Alex
And all of this has to be done within the constraints of an existing warehouse. Here is Gary from Studio HOK again.
Gary
And it's a leased building so you've got to take it back to its original condition at the end of the rent.
Gary
So you've got to design something that actually can be installed and removed.
Jane
And don’t forget, this was all happening during the height of Covid, with lockdowns past and looming for the future.
Steve Cundall
Everybody did what they needed to do. I remember the first Easter I was sat on site for Easter weekend. It was a beautiful, lovely weekend. I remember taking photographs of thermometers in the lab, we were trying to get the lab up to temperature. Nobody else on site it was me that did it.
Steve Cundall
Obviously, at the time, right at the beginning and at a number of points during the project, we had spikes in COVID.
Steve Cundall
One of our key risks was COVID, in the effect that COVID would have on the workforce.
Alex
Daily onsite testing that, although not mandatory, had a phenomenal uptake…
Jane
Alongside compulsory mask wearing and social distancing.
Steve Cundall
A meeting room that would hold 12 people, you can maybe get three people in it. A welfare facility that could have held 120, you can maybe get 40 people in. So it meant that space on the site was very restricted because we had so much more and bear in mind it was 24/7 with 600 guys on site, 24/7.
Alex
The team turned to the entertainment industry for a solution.
Steve Cundall
So we had beautiful tents brought in with balconies and all sorts.
Alex
The tents gave them the space that they needed…
Steve Cundall
… and we could put them up and down pretty quick.
Jane
A lack of more than just space was causing issues.
Steve Cundall
The construction industry, generally at the time, was struggling with materials because a lot of the factories weren't working across the world.
Alex
And all the time safety remained a critical priority.
Steve Cundall
I mean safety on a construction site is paramount, it’s for all the right reasons, it’s the number one factor followed closely behind with quality.
Steve Cundall
The way you achieve those is by getting the right people on the project. But, the faster you move, on a project, obviously the risks start to go up, in terms of safety. So it was very hands on for everybody from the Mace safety team, the Balfour Beatty safety team, their subcontractors, and the client obviously in the midst of the pandemic, and everything that COVID meant and the restrictions that were placed on us. The conventional safety was, was paramount.
Jane
With all of these constraints and specifications understood, the team could begin moving their blocks, making progress…..
Jane
The key player in success of this project was Major Gary Jackson.
Alex
Praised by the interviewees, Major Jackson of the engineering regiment chaired the Design Authority meetings with military precision.
Jane
Each participant was given a strict five minutes to succinctly explain their point and have the decision made.
Alex
Can’t be concise? Come back next time.
Steve Cundall
It was quick, it was snappy.
Steve Cundall
It all hinged around the clarity of decision making.
Steve Cundall
And this is no joke. In those design authority meetings, we had over 100 people on the team's call. So everybody was informed.
Steve Cundall
Not everybody spoke but there was a sort of quorum of people who had to make a decision so it was very important that when things came to that design authority
everybody had the information, the people coming in could talk about it and then we'd make a decision there and then, and Gary chaired these meetings.
Steve Cundall
Big shout out to Gary Jackson, Major Gary Jackson.
Steve Cundall
He clearly described the impact and benefit of all of the changes that were needed. And, without that design authority would never have got where we were.
Steve Cundall
And it was brilliant. It was brilliant.
Gary
So the vision was, right, let’s get a logistics warehouse, the biggest spaces that we can find, and then build within that as fast as possible, the kind of testing facilities for the diagnostic testing, and so it was using the principles of the nightingale hospitals…
Jane
But the Nightingale Hospitals were open plan - the RFL had to have enclosed boxes within the larger space.
Alex
Gary’s design team had to deduce how these enclosed boxes would all fit in the pre-built space of the warehouse.
Gary
They come in different sizes, but the one we were looking at was kind of probably the mid to large scale, which is 200 metres long by 100 metres wide.
Gary
But obviously they've got columns in as well.
Jane
Where the initial concept incorporated a 150m long production line, another stumbling block was reached with a lack of space and fire safety considerations.
Gary
So we just basically did a U shape, so we did 75 metres long. And then actually at the top of that, you had the little pavilion, which was where all the testing was done.
Alex
It was essentially a horseshoe-shaped room with a central joining point where the lab lines intersected.
Gary
That was the kind of the concept that came really quickly. And then that first weekend, I sketched a layout…
Gary
…and then that's really probably what's built.
Jane
A production line for end-point Polymerase Chain Reaction tests, or ePCRs.
Steve Blake
So PCR testing is a gold standard high quality test that's used for many laboratory processes. But what's unusual about Rosalind Franklin is the volume and the high throughput, and the speed with which the lab gets through those tests.
Steve Blake
So we use a technology that is manufactured by a firm called LGC. They're the only firm in the world that makes something like this.
Alex
It miniaturises the samples into a roll tape. For ease, picture a petri dish the size of a pinhead…
Jane
…This tape is then dunked intermittently in hot and cold water, each time triggering a reproductive cycle that multiplies the RNA.
Steve Blake
And the magic is that we have reagents in there that attach itself to the RNA. And when you shine ultraviolet light on it, those that have grown glow in the dark, hence the lighthouse lab network name.
Alex
If Covid is present, it will now be clear to the tester and glow in the dark.
Steve Cundall
And to replicate that, to go through the machines, they used orange juice…
Jane
…Specifically, pulpy orange juice… the one with bits in.
Alex
The pulpy orange juice replicated a Covid sample for the purposes of testing the equipment before any samples went through it.
Jane
To fit this equipment in, the team needed to know what equipment would be used…
Alex
…And what infrastructure resources they would have access to.
Jane
Consulting with organisations within the supply chain allowed the team to design exclusively with the elements they knew the manufacturers could provide.
Alex
The modular manufacturing model is a modern method of construction, simultaneously an engineering and design challenge, but a win for sustainability.
Gary
So it’s offsite manufacturing.
Gary
Rather than taking your wet trades on site, which take time, you've got to take dry components, which are preassembled and then you take them to site and then it's a lot quicker to just, basically, bolt them together.
Helen
So all of the laboratories were made out of modular panels, that were a kit of parts so that when they came to site, you weren't having to drill, cut down to size, they were all already the size they were meant to be.
Helen
They worked closely with us so we designed in 3D from the off.
Jane
With daily meetings and the 3D space, the team could review the model for clashes, figuring out layout and who took precedence.
Helen
The other thing we did to speed it up was we made some decisions very early on, no breaking the slab unnecessarily. So all of the drainage is vacuum drainage saving.
Helen
And surface mount the electrical. So whilst you can, have fully coordinated electrical in with the walls, beautiful lines, we didn't need that - you need it to be cleanable, you need it to be workable. The idea of that is that you're minimising the number of interfaces that you have at any one time. So you can speed through the design.
Alex
As pieces started flying down thick and fast, the team and Major Jackson decided to split the decisions into the three streams that Helen outlined previously: infrastructure, equipment, and people.
Jane
Practicalities for all of these aspects aligned often along the course of construction. The design had to consider the people using it, and while this example is fairly typical…
Alex
…Simultaneously working on construction and lab work is, less standard.
Steve Cundall
The way the project was designed allowed us to do progressive handover and allow the speed and, I keep talking about cadence, but that cadence of handing over lab lines, progressively, whilst construction was going on, imagine, this is a forensic clean environment that they're working in next to a construction site.
Alex
One of the key components that allowed this was the separation of each lab and accompanying equipment.
Helen
We were trying to maximise the number of workfaces people could work on. So we were building line one and 12 and trying to build in.
Helen
The ducting for all the air handling was done in modules.
Jane
Situated above their individual labs the EPCR kits had to be installed using cranes and, once in place, remain accessible for workers.
Helen
So, you know, there was a lot of “constructability” that was considered and needed.
Helen
The clever stuff was more in the sequencing, the phasing, how can you get different teams working, so we made sure that there was a walk-on ceiling so that you could be working on the installation of the MEP and safely be inside the lab.
Gary
What it comes down to is a laboratory in terms of containment level, it's a physical boundary, okay, and it's all about air. So you can't let the air out because then a pathogen could get out. So therefore, you've got to design it very carefully. So the air tightness of the lab is critical. And so then that comes down to the way that all the wall partitions join each other, how the partitions then join the floor, how it joins the ceiling. And so all those little details had to be considered, joins to a window, how a door works, things like that.
Alex
Utilising these individual air filtration systems means that a contamination event will only shut down the lab module in which it has occurred, not all labs.
Jane
But crucially for the construction process, it meant the air supplies were separate, so the lab lines could be handed over when ready and others continue to be built without interfering with those already working.
Steve Cundall
On the first of January we started and three months later, we handed over the first lab line to the client.
Alex
The co-ordination of this was only possible through the Design Authority meetings and prioritising collaboration.
Helen
The collaboration helped us all pushing the same direction. You said, what problems? Did we come across? Many? Plenty, but none of them really stick out. Because we got over them with more collaboration and, you know, getting to the crux of the problem, what is the issue? And coming forward with solutions.
Steve Cundall
I cannot, hand on heart, say that any issues that we that we had never lasted more than 24 hours it was in that was a long run, you know, it was always very, very fast moving. And collaborative, … it was collaborative.
Jane
And the product of this collaboration?
Steve Blake
Getting the first keys handed over was great and it was great to see that line going into production. But it wasn't a big bang launch because, of course, there were nine others to build.
Steve Cundall
The last one to be to be handed over, that was the big moment. And then it was on to the welfare and the offices and everything like that. And I noticed in my team that erosion, after Christmas, of people just like, you know “I need a break now”. And you do forget about the stress levels, and it's probably easier for me, sitting above it all, when the guys that are working for me are right in amongst the nuts and bolts on a daily basis, solving the same problems over and over and over again. So yeah, that's something that again, I will take away. What I would say on this project is that we have a lot of instances where welfare is a state of mind it is a big thing and we paid a lot of attention to that.
Jane
What the team is perhaps most proud of is the legacy that their collaboration has created.
Helen
It was always going to be a legacy. So there were lots of synergies with the Nightingale hospitals but they were always a temporary measure, to get over a horrific situation. This was gone into knowing that it would be there for future.
Steve Blake
So the legacy here really, is to create a large testing facility that can contribute to the country's health care. Now, we're currently in discussions with various others about how we go about doing that.
Steve Cundall
Certainly, the uses of the lab are endless going forward and that's something that I’m hugely proud of.
Helen
But this has been a real success, you know, and is a real legacy and we're incredibly proud of it.
Alex
The lab has processed millions of tests over the course of the Covid pandemic…
Steve Cundall
We helped in sort of controlling that COVID spread. But at of the end of the pandemic, we're left with this fantastic facility that wasn’t there before. We've got all these people now trained in lab science that weren't available before. So yes, going forward, who knows what the lab will do? Who knows? But it's a facility that's there and ready to be used, which is great.
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