Surety of service for the Red Cross

The new NAPS facility accommodates the New South Wales and ACT blood processing, testing and distribution operations and supporting management and administrative functions. This new facility allows the Australian Red Cross Blood Service (ARCBS) to combine blood collection storage, blood processing and testing operations, currently performed at a number of locations, into one operation at NAPS.

ARCBS brief was for a state of the art facility with the highest level of compliance. The blood processing and blood storage facility is fully validated and registered with the Therapeutics Goods Administration (TGA). The laboratories are designed to PC2 (BSL2) containment levels.

Further, the site has been classified as Importance Level 4 as defined in the Building Code of Australia and is able to continue to operate in island mode for four days in the event of a disaster in complete isolation from the city services (water, power, waste, sewer, fire water) without external support (maintenance or spare parts). Under circumstances of continued loss or unavailability of one or more essential service from the usual source of supply, the ARCBS facility must have the capability of delivering blood supplies to hospital and plasma manufacturing facilities on a continuous basis.

The functional areas of the 10,000 m2 facility are as follows:

• Level 1: Warehouse, blood storage (coolrooms and freezer rooms, blood processing manufacturing (centrifuges, etc)
• Level 2: Plant rooms, canteen, staff amenities
• Level 3: PC2 laboratories, offices
• Level 4: PC2 laboratories including PCR rooms, offices

Project outcomes: 

• Redundancy, reliability and energy efficiency design considerations to meet the island mode operations
• 3D design to minimise coordination issues in limited plantroom space
• Facility awarded '2012 Best Health Building valued at $50 million - $75 million' at the Master Builder Awards, NSW