A look at the proposal to turn FNB Soccer City into a massive coronavirus field hospital
Architects Boogertman and Partners has published a new proposal to turn Johannesburg’s FNB Soccer City into a 1,500-bed field hospital for coronavirus patients.
The firm – which helped design the stadium for the 2020 Fifa World Cup – said that it came up with the proposal alongside a number of partners in just 72 hours, the weekend after the countrywide lockdown was first announced.
“A stadium designed for large volumes of segregated audiences to move swiftly within defined areas (players, spectators, media, VIPS, vendors) lends itself very well to creating space for patients, medical staff and suppliers to move through a treatment system while keeping the distancing needed to minimise the risk of increased infection,” the group said.
“From basement level to the upper suite levels each tier of the stadium was assigned a role in the flow of treatment from testing and patient assessment to high care in ICU units.”
In the proposal, provision of facilities for patients is divided into three categories of risk with the appropriate shielding and cubicles used for those at the highest need of care and intubation with beds, and less intensive medical facilities provided for patients who need to be monitored to assess their level of response to the Covid-19 infection.
The final scheme in the field hospital proposal accommodates a minimum of 1,500 beds.
Boogertman and Partners said the proposal is engineered for the best safety possible while accommodating the high volume of patients, medical specialists, support staff and vendors of up to over 4,500 people daily if the facility runs at full capacity.
Jean Grobler, director at Boogertman and Partners indicated that the team also developed a design and logistics proposal for an alternate site, Loftus Versfeld in Pretoria, as part of its presentation.
“While I hope we never have to build our design – which we believe is an excellent solution from initial low-risk cases through to full ICU facilities – the spirit of collective problem solving and goodwill was incredible. It made us proud of our profession,” he said.
You can read more about the proposal and the teams involved here.
Read: The good, the bad and the ugly facing South Africa after lockdown
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