Isambard Kingdom Brunel to produce a solution. Brunel was working on the "Great Eastern" amongst other projects, but accepted the task in February 1855 of designing and building the War Office requirement of a temporary, pre-fabricated hospital that could be shipped to Crimea and erected there. In 5 months the team he had assembled designed, built, and shipped pre-fabricated wood and canvas buildings, providing them complete with advice on transportation and positioning of the facilities. Brunel had been working with Gloucester Docks-based William Eassie on the launching stage for the "Great Eastern"; Eassie had designed and built wooden prefabricated huts used in both
Marc Isambard Brunel but this scheme never came to fruition. In 1818 Brunel had patented a tunnelling shield. This was a reinforced shield of cast iron in which miners would work in separate compartments, digging at the tunnel-face. Periodically the shield would be driven forward by large jacks, and the tunnel surface behind it would be lined with brick. It is claimed that Brunel found the inspiration for his tunnelling shield from the shipworm, "Teredo navalis", which has its head protected by a hard shell whilst it bores through ships' timbers. Brunel's invention provided the basis for subsequent tunnelling shields used to build