STUDENTS PROJECTS
PROJECTS2013
Student: Tsokos - Pappas Andreas
Supervisor: Giftopoulos Stavros
Assistant: Mazarakos Thomas, Adjunct Professor, School of Nautical and Mechanical Engineering, National Technical University of Athens
School of Architecture, National Technical University of Athens
Presentation date: 07/11/2014
This thesis is about the wide restructuring and rebuilding of an already existent ferry, and the redesign of it into a hospital ship, according to architectural principles and criteria. We define the area of operation of the vessel as the island complex of the Aegean Sea, which in turn defines the design properties and functional requirements of the project.
Scenario
The island complex of the Aegean Sea has some very specific characteristics regarding its geographical and demographic distribution, with the islands, as an aggregation of standalone geographical entities, grouped according to the distances between them into wider geographical units. According to this grouping, and the study of the demographic, transportation characteristics and the health units present on them, we create a working scenario of a number of such hospital ships which perform circular routes approaching certain groups of islands each, and offer medical, information, prolepsis and short term hospitalization services, and which are based, commence the routes and end them at the main islands that contain General Hospitals. In this way we believe that the basic medical needs of the island population and enhance the operations of the islands' hospital infrastructures, while the more serious medical needs to be assigned to the nearest General Hospitals. The reason that we choose a primary health unit as the project for this thesis is because the limited spatial and functional requirements of such infrastructure enable us to use as the basis for the rebuilding a vessel of relatively compact dimensions, that enables it to approach and moor even in the most demanding harbors of the smallest and most remote islands.
Rebuilding
After the definition of the maximum required dimensions for the donor ship, and the according study of various types of ships for rebuilding, we settle as the basis for the project on a small ferry originally designed and built for performing on subsidized ferry lines on the Aegean Sea, and then, after studying the design properties of the ship, we determine the scale of the conversion as well as the building program of the project.
Architectural synthesis and functional study of the project
We then define the principal reference idea for the design of the project, and according to it we continue on the design of the health unit. Next, and after thorough and methodical resolution of the various design attributes by combining which we resulted into the final architectural form, we present the functional and movement axis analysis of the project, having organized accordingly the various functions of the hospital ship and the relation between them within the spatial restrictions arousing by the definition of the structure as a functioning ship. We also regard as specifically important the issue posed by the need to ensure adequate natural light on all of the vessel's spaces, which, taking into consideration the specific naval design requirements of such project and the importance of natural light to the well-being of the patients, poses significant design challenges on the project.
Construction and statical analysis
Finally, we present the construction characteristics and identify and calculate the loads along the longitudinal axis of the ship and according to them calculate the flexural torque and shear force diagrams both of the parent vessel and every proposal for the conversion, including the final result.
