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At St Vincent’s Private Hospital Northside, Icon Cancer Centre’s new radiation oncology facility has been delivered using an innovative modular construction approach designed to meet the challenges of building a highly specialised cancer treatment facility within an existing, fully operational hospital campus.
Constructing a radiotherapy service in a live hospital environment presents unique challenges, from constrained real estate to the need to minimise disruption to patients, visitors, staff and clinical services. Rather than relying on traditional build methods, Icon adopted modular construction to deliver a safer, faster and more controlled solution.
Large sections of the centre were constructed offsite at Hutchinson Builders’ modular fabrication hub in Yatala on the Gold Coast. These highly specialised modules were then transported to St Vincent’s Private Hospital Northside and installed as part of a carefully coordinated process. By shifting much of the construction activity offsite, the approach significantly reduced time, noise and disruption within the hospital campus.
Each module weighs around seven tonnes, roughly the weight of 14 concert grand pianos. In total, the centre was delivered to site across nine semitrailers. When lined up end to end, these trailers would stretch longer than an AFL field, highlighting the scale, precision and planning involved in safely delivering the build onto an active hospital campus.
Icon Cancer Centre Australia & New Zealand CEO, Paul Fenton said the project reflects Icon’s continued focus on innovation that improves timely access to cancer care for local patients.
“Building a radiotherapy unit within a live hospital environment is highly complex,” Paul said.
“Icon is highly experienced in modular builds, which allow us to deliver specialised treatment spaces in a way that is efficient, precise and respectful of the hospital around us.
This approach helps limit disruption while maintaining quality and ensuring patients and clinicians have access to the facilities they need as soon as possible.”
St Vincent’s Private Hospital Northside CEO, Oli Steele said he has been impressed by the smooth and efficient installation process and what the new centre will mean for patients.
“Patients frequently require a combination of treatments and this centre helps bring those services together in one place.”
Once all nine trailers arrived onsite, the modules were lifted into place and installed in a single day, a milestone moment for the project team and a key step towards bringing advanced cancer care closer to home.
Hutchinson Managing Director, Russell Fryer says his team is delighted to continue its long-standing working relationship with Icon helping to build their world-leading cancer care facilities.
“This is the third advanced prefabricated radiation oncology facility we’ve delivered for Icon, and our twelfth across Australia in the past five years,” said Russell.
“That experience matters when you’re building complex infrastructure in a live hospital environment.
Modular construction allows us to do majority of the work offsite, then install quickly and safely onsite.
In this case, it’s delivered in around half the time of a traditional build, while significantly reducing disruption to patients, staff and hospital operations.
It’s a practical solution that helps get critical care facilities up and running sooner for the communities who need them,” Mr Fryer added.
The bunker will house a Varian TrueBeam linear accelerator, a state-of-the-art radiotherapy machine used to treat many different types of cancer with precision accuracy.
Most patients will never see this part of the journey. But long before the first appointment begins, a remarkable amount of planning, engineering and teamwork goes into building the spaces where cancer care happens.
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