Haukeland Paediatric Hospital in Bergen
A new hospital complex with ardesia slabs to enhance the surroundings.
The Haukeland University Hospital in Bergen, Norway, has been extended thanks to the construction of a new department dedicated entirely to paediatric care. Construction of the new building started in 2011 and was completed in 2017 and over the next few years the hospital management is also thinking about adding more wings to the structure.
The client asked the designers to combine all the babies and children’s wards in a single unit so that all the patients and treatment areas could be managed more easily. One part of a new building will be reserved for the maternity ward at a later stage.
The client also specified that only safe, eco-friendly products should be used: in fact, the building has been awarded Breeam certification (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method), a European reference protocol for the design, construction and management of sustainable buildings.
Mapei supplied products to build part of the new building, particularly the large reception area where patients are welcomed to the hospital, the changing rooms, the bathrooms and the three new swimming pools.
The external façades, the inside of the swimming pools and the floors and walls in the reception area, changing rooms and bathrooms were all dressed with Alta slate, a special clay-based porcelain tile which can be found in some specific zones of Norway. This type of stone requires the use of specific, durable adhesives and grouts.
The products chosen for this particular work were CONPLAN ECO R rapid self-levelling mortar to form substrates from 3 to 20 mm thick, CONFIX spray-applied mortar to repair the concrete and MAPEPOXY L epoxy adhesive to repair the cracks. These products are all made and sold in Norway by Mapei AS.
The concrete surfaces were restored with MAPEGROUT T40 thixotropic mortar. Where required, surfaces were waterproofed with MAPELASTIC two-component cementitious mortar, which is particularly suitable for creating highly flexible, protective waterproof coatings on structures subject to cracking.
To install the slabs of ardesia, Mapei Technical Services recommended ULTRALITE S1 one-component, high performance adhesive, while ULTRALITE S2 lightweight cementitious adhesive was the preferred choice for the large format slabs.
The product chosen to fill the grout lines was KERACOLOR GG high-performance, polymer-modified cementitious mortar for grout lines from 4 to 15 mm wide. The expansion joints were sealed with MAPESIL LM and MAPESIL AC.
For further information on products see www.mapei.no
