28 November 2005
Sheffield - heart of the city starts to beat with the opening of the new Macdonald St. Paul’s Hotel
The transformation of Sheffield’s city centre through the “heart of the city” project is gaining momentum with the opening of the new four star Macdonald St Paul’s Hotel. The development on Norfolk Street opened its doors last week (28 November), some five years after demolition of the infamous “egg box” town hall building allowed the combined development to proceed. The £20 million luxury hotel complex with 161 bedrooms and suites helps to bring definition to the Peace Garden and Millennium Walkway, while reflecting the gracious curves of the Winter Garden.
The hotel, designed by concept architect Mark Weintraub, project architect Street Design Partnership and consulting engineers Buro Happold, will be operated by Macdonald Hotels.
Built by Bowmer and Kirkland and project managed by AYH, the design and build team faced a number of challenges throughout the project on this tight city centre site.
Having designed the adjoining Winter Garden and Millennium Gallery, Buro Happold has been instrumental in helping the team appreciate how the interface between the two buildings could be bridged. This input has been especially beneficial in relation to a public walkway that has been created through the hotel’s pavilion to aid the circulation of pedestrians from the train station to the city centre. From an engineering perspective, the knowledge within the Buro Happold team, especially of the foundation design philosophy, has enabled the most cost effective solutions to be developed.
Within the basement void that was left after the demolition of the old town hall building, a key engineering challenge has been to transform the two storey car park into a space that accommodates an 18m long swimming pool, a health spa, fitness club and banqueting hall. The careful selection of engineering techniques and foundation design ensured the structural integrity of the existing basement wall was maintained. The early identification of these challenges ensured the design was progressed in harmony with the site constraints to the combined benefit of the team and the client.
In order to minimise the impact of the construction process on the surrounding community and shopping facilities required careful consideration of the selection of building materials. With the highly repetitive nature of the bedrooms, a pre cast concrete solution was selected instead of a cast insitu alternative which would have involved additional vehicle movements. The five pre cast floors ride on top of a four storey cast insitu concrete frame (two storeys above ground, two storeys below ground) which allows the removal of the otherwise regular grid, opening up the main foyer area while also providing flexibility to the lower floors. The mix of pre cast concrete and cast insitu concrete forms of construction maximises the benefits that both systems offer while providing an acoustically robust solution for hotel guests.
In addition to the main hotel frame, the stunning steelwork to the pavilion and the impressive barrel vaulted roof to the main structure complement the fine detailing which is a key feature of the contemporary styling and is evident throughout the development.
The views from the large bedroom windows of the Peace Garden and the Winter Garden ensure the hotel is clearly differentiated from any other provider in the city.
Ends
Editors Note
The luxury hotel will offer 2 bed/room suites, 31 club rooms (including 2 disabled), 43 King and sofa rooms, 43 King rooms (including 2 disabled), and 42 zip and link rooms along with a spa and sauna, beauty and health treatment rooms, pool and gym and over 1500sqm of bars and restaurants.
Press office and practice information at burohappold.com
Buro Happold is a multi-disciplinary international practice of consulting engineers established in 1976 offering civil and structural engineering, mechanical and electrical engineering, quantity surveying, building services and environmental engineering, infrastructure and traffic engineering, geotechnical engineering, façade engineering, fire engineering, Computational Fluid Dynamics analysis, access consultancy, project management, urban design and a range of specialist CAD services.
Further information available from:
Emma Waterland Tel 0113 204 2200
emma.waterland@burohappold.com
