UK-based design firm BDP, a subsidiary of Japanese engineering consulting firm Nippon Koei has been involved in design works of a temporary hospital in London for treatment of COVID-19 patients. With the number of patients rising rapidly, National Health Service constructed a dedicated hospital for the disease transforming a part of the exhibition center into a 500-bed facility in nine days.

Nightingale Hospital was opened on April 3 at ExCel Center in east London. BDP proposed to the government a plan to transform the center to the hospital. Working with local contractors and the operator of the exhibition center, the firm succeeded in completing the facility with a capacity of 500 beds in a short period of time. Though NHS will suspend admission of new patients on May 15, the hospital will be kept ready in case of the the second wave of infections. (2020/05/15)