3,788 Beds | 21 Project Sites | 2 Phases | Emergency Adaptive Planning 

AMRD’S CONTRIBUTION

Healthcare Planning
Emergency Infrastructure Planning
Adaptive Reuse Planning
Infection-Control Zoning
Patient & Staff Movement Planning
Phased Capacity Planning

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Surat required the rapid creation of additional healthcare capacity across multiple locations. Available buildings included shelters, health centres, community health centres, hostels, schools, convention centres, multi-level parking facilities, community halls and a stadium.

The challenge was to convert these very different structures into functional COVID-care environments within an extremely limited timeframe, while working through severe shortages of manpower, construction materials, oxygen piping, partitions and other essential resources.

PROJECT CONTEXT

The emergency response could not rely on a conventional hospital-planning template.

Each site had a different structural arrangement, circulation pattern, access condition and usable capacity. AMRD therefore assessed every building individually to determine how its existing spaces could be reorganised for healthcare use with minimal civil intervention.

The objective was to maximise usable healthcare capacity while keeping construction, material consumption and implementation time to the minimum necessary.

RESEARCH-LED PLANNING

The planning approach evolved with the changing requirements of COVID care and was informed by WHO guidance and relevant infection-control protocols.

The facilities were planned to accommodate isolation wards and beds, nursing stations, donning and doffing areas, stores and controlled barriers.

A central planning requirement was the segregation of contaminated, potentially contaminated and non-contaminated zones, supported by carefully considered patient and healthcare-staff movement. These principles allowed buildings not originally intended for clinical use to operate more safely as temporary healthcare environments.

ADAPTIVE RESPONSE

Rather than imposing a single standardised layout across all locations, each facility was planned around its own operational potential.

Existing spaces were reused wherever possible, reducing unnecessary reconstruction and allowing limited labour and materials to be directed toward essential healthcare requirements.

This approach became particularly important during a period when labour availability and material supply were constrained. Planning decisions therefore had to remain practical, efficient and immediately implementable.

PHASED EMERGENCY CAPACITY

The programme was implemented across 21 project sites in two phases, collectively creating approximately 3,788 beds of emergency healthcare capacity across Surat and its vicinity.

The result was a distributed network of adapted healthcare facilities, each responding to its individual building condition while contributing to the larger objective of rapidly expanding the city’s healthcare capacity.

THE OUTCOME

The project demonstrated AMRD’s ability to translate evolving clinical and infection-control requirements into practical planning solutions under extraordinary conditions.

Through a combination of research, healthcare planning, infection-control principles and adaptive reuse, existing infrastructure was reorganised into functional COVID-care environments while responding to severe constraints of time, manpower and materials.

Research-led planning under extraordinary constraints.
Existing infrastructure adapted for healthcare.
3,788 beds created across 21 sites through a coordinated emergency response.