At the CESA Aon Engineering Excellence Awards 2025, the winning project in the category: Projects under R50 million, was the Royal McAlpine Burns Unit Project, for client: Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital. Maninga Engineering were the mechanical engineers on this award-winning project.
Project Background
The expansion was funded by the Roy McAlpine Foundation with additional support from the University of the Witwatersrand, the Gauteng Department of Health, and the hospital. The facility is now named the Wits Roy McAlpine Burns Unit and was inaugurated in August 2024.
To serve as the only public-sector adult burns center in Gauteng—and a referral hub for the region—the design needed to:
- Add 12 specialist ICU beds with advanced life-support systems.
- Include a dedicated burns operating theatre to reduce surgical delays.
- Add a recovery room, a new outpatient facility, and rehabilitation areas for physio, occupational, and speech therapy.
- Feature a research and training wing with offices, education space, and a skin substitute lab tissue engineering suite intended to support a future Indigenous skin bank.
Maninga Engineering’s design of the Wits Roy McAlpine Adult Burns Unit showcases the very best of sustainable, resilient, and patient-focused engineering. It combines innovation with practicality and has delivered a long-term solution to a pressing national healthcare challenge.
