Alt Hotel shortlisted for BIM Awards 2018
Nomination Category: Doing IT: Abroad
Name: Paul Sandford
Company: Peter Dann Ltd
BIM Show Live spoke with Paul Sandford ahead of the BIM Awards 2018 on their award entry and what makes this a potentially award-winning project:
The Alt Hotel, St John’s is a five storey, 148 room, volumetric modular hotel located on the waterfront of St John’s, Newfoundland, on Canada’s Atlantic coast.
The £20m hotel building is traditionally constructed up to 1st-floor podium level, with four storeys of steel-framed modules on top. All 96 modules were constructed in northern Poland and shipped across the Atlantic from the port of Gdansk to St John’s (over 3,000 miles).
The entire four storeys of modules were installed in just four weeks, with each one arriving at port complete with fully finished interiors, electrics, plumbing, cladding and glazing – the largest 3.9m x 15m modules weighed close to 30 tonnes each.
The structural design of the Alt Hotel was a very complex undertaking, with significant earthquake, wind and snow loads to consider. We had to ensure the discrete modular “parts” were designed, detailed and connected to form an integrated superstructure, while also maintaining buildability and minimising site-finishing works.
All module types were independently modelled using BIM to coordinate with the layouts as well as other disciplines, all the way to the manufacturer. These also aided with the construction sequence as there was an ability to stack modules in different orders to allow the connectivity issues to be resolved. The concepts of real-life Lego and Jenga spring to mind!
Construction of this building was perfectly suited to offsite construction techniques, as there were many significant barriers to traditional construction on this site, such as extremely adverse weather conditions, a lack of skilled local labour and high site fit-out costs, to name a few.
The ground-breaking Alt Hotel opened on time in spring 2017 and has so far had overwhelmingly positive feedback and reviews.
