Buro Happold plays key design role in the Iveria Hotel, Tbilisi
Major refurbishment for 1960s hotel
The newly opened Radisson SAS Iveria Hotel in Tbilisi, the capitol of Georgia, has laid the foundation for future commercial development in the region.
Over the last four years the hotel, formerly known as the Interhotel, has been completely gutted and rebuilt to European standards. International multidisciplinary engineering consultancy Buro Happold has delivered the structural engineering and building services design for the project, working in close collaboration with the architect Graft and the client New Hotel Joint Stock Company.
Energy supplies
One of the challenges the consultancy faced when designing the Building Services systems was the region’s often unsecure energy supply. Consequently power stand-by units, a water supply system and underground fuel tanks that can bridge potential failures have been utilised to ensure the hotel can maintain a continuous supply of the main utilities.
Meeting international seismic standards
Working in collaboration with Georgian based engineers Buro Happold strengthened the existing concrete structure of the hotel as well as that of an adjacent new 2 storey building to meet international seismic standards, necessitated by the region’s volatile geological nature.
New facilities
The refurbished hotel now boasts 249 rooms, as well as several restaurants, bars and a conference centre. In addition the old roof top swimming pool has been removed and replaced with a split-level spa and fitness centre. To extend the Iveria’s leisure facilities and competiveness in the hotel arena, a casino, ballroom and restaurant have been housed in the new building adjacent to the existing hotel.
The Iveria has had a colourful past: built in the cold war of the 1960s as the Interhotel, it offered some of the finest accommodation to be found in Tbilisi. However the hotel fell in to disrepair and during the 1990s it was occupied by 800 refugees fleeing the conflict of the Abkhazia war that ensued following the collapse of the USSR. They colonised the building and, to create more living space, erected facades to weather proof the balconies using a variety of materials including cardboard! As the refugees were gradually re-housed it has became possible to restore the building to its original use.
Project team
Client:
New Hotel Joint Stock Company, Tbilisi
Architect:
GRAFT Gesellschaft von Architekten mbH, Berlin
Buro Happold services:
Building services and structural engineering
Note to Editors
Buro Happold
Press office and practice information at www.burohappold.com
Images are available on request.
For more information, please contact:
Gill Sincock
External Communications Consultant
Tel: +44 (0)1225 320600
Email: gill.sincock@burohappold.com
Buro Happold is a multi-disciplinary international practice of consulting engineers established in 1976. It offers civil and structural engineering, mechanical and electrical engineering, quantity surveying, building services and environmental engineering, health and safety management, infrastructure and traffic engineering, ground engineering, façade engineering, fire engineering, computational fluid dynamics analysis, inclusive design consultancy, project management, urban design and a range of specialist CAD services.
Graft
For further information please contact Max Winchester - max@graftlab.com
Categories: Press Releases, Hospitality, Building services engineering, Structural engineering