Edith Cowan University, School of Nursing & Midwifery

– The objectives of the project were to have spaces that mirror imaged a hospital to provide a better learning environment to accommodate the increased enrolments. – Seven existing wards were refurbished and reconfigured to create new wards complete with medical gases, drug rooms and prep areas that would accommodate more students plus allow for them to be monitored by teaching staff. – Two new hi-fi wards were created with control rooms with one-way mirrors to create a controlled examination and assessment area, two midwifery rooms were refurbished to allow for teaching with birthing pools plus the installation of drug rooms and dirty utility areas and two lecture spaces were refurbished. – In addition, the teaching staff’s offices, which also accommodated the store room, breakout area and library was reconfigured and refurbished to make better use of the space plus allow for more staff offices. – During the course of the works, inclement weather unveiled several serious leaks within the roof space that were entering into the works zone putting pressure onto our programme. Upon examination, we also discovered that the fire rating in the cavity walls was not compliant. Our flexibility and collaboration with the ECU properties and maintenance teams allowed for us to repair the damage without impacting our programme.