The unique children sanatorium has been specialising in treating children with chronic respiratory diseases in the current “temporary” facilities for more than 35 years. Children patients are treated by speleotherapy in the environment of the Moravian Karst Protected Landscape Area near the Císařská Cave and this treatment centre will now get a new modern building tailored to its operations.

“The capacity of the sanatorium will nearly double compared to today’s. The new facilities will offer accommodation for up to 78 people – children and their companions. It will therefore be possible to satisfy the demand for the effective treatment method offered by the sanatorium to a greater extent. This will naturally include the construction of high-quality facilities for the staff,” said Governor Bohumil Šimek.

The first task faced by the contractor’s team is finishing the architectural study presented during the tender procedure. Its author is Adam Rujbr Architects s.r.o., a design firm based in Brno.

The construction portion will be provided by VCES a.s., the lead member of the supplier consortium. “We plan to start the construction in the spring of 2021, as soon as the design work is completed,” said Zdeněk Pokorný, CEO of VCES a.s., and added: “The construction of the new children sanatorium is an extraordinary opportunity for us to utilise our experience in building environmentally friendly buildings, using BIM models and, last but not least, comprehensive solutions for our clients’ investment projects using the Design & Build approach in a single place. I believe that we will be able to fully meet the expectations of the South Moravian Region and create a pleasant environment mainly for the visiting children.”

The sanatorium is designed as a complex of four interconnected buildings. In addition to rooms for children and their patients, three school classrooms with after-school care, a medical section and rehabilitation areas with a public swimming pool will be also built in the complex. Next to the complex, there will be two multi-purpose sport courts, an arboretum, and an area for hippotherapy.

According to Petr Hýbler, deputy governor, the construction of the new sanatorium can be considered a pilot project in many respects: “The South Moravian Region used an unusual combination of a negotiated procedure with publication and an architectural competition in the tender procedure. A fixed price was set and the bids were evaluated only based on qualitative criteria. An independent jury selected the winning bid which best met the requirements for building architecturally interesting, modern and efficient buildings that fit well into the Moravian Karst Protected Landscape Area. The building is also supposed to be friendly to its surroundings and users at low operating costs and use renewable energy sources for its operation.”

For the first time ever, the South Moravian Region also made full use of the international contractual standard FIDIC in the Design & Build mode (Yellow Book). The supplier consortium will provide the design work and the actual construction of the sanatorium under a single contract. Both key stages assume the full use of the BIM model, including the shared DALUX data environment for the efficient sharing of all information and their subsequent use in facility management.