Figure 2 – The halls leading from the entrance to the cocktail lounge and restaurant also held true to the form, with the framing done in red to contrast the white.
While the final product is an innovative visual masterpiece, the road to realizing the project’s completion was a long and winding one, from the standpoints of the design, fabrication and installation.
The Design
The design firm Graven Images was selected to develop the idea for the project based on a successful 11-year relationship with Carlson Rezidor and the firm’s amazing ability to create beautiful designs that are functional works of art. The creative team of Graven Images is composed of architects, interior designers, graphics designers, artists and 3-D designers, and has more than 30 years’ experience in the realization of business projects, public, hotel and leisure.
Jim Hamilton, the creative director of Graven Images, was in charge of designing the project and explained the ideas behind it, “Like any design you have to first and foremost satisfy the objectives set out by your client. In this instance part of our brief was to create an interior that would create a buzz and excitement around it and that would be recognizable as part of the new Blu family in America.”
“I was looking to create an installation within the entrance lobby area at the hotel that would envelope the guests on arrival and also still engage with them during their stay whenever they arrived back at the hotel,” he continued. “The space is an unusual one in that the hotel guests after check in have to travel up to another level to crossover to the hotel bedroom block. The main concept for the wall was to form a canyon around the escalators that would disguise them and at the same time give the guests an amazing sense of arrival.”
After coming up with the idea for the design, a material that would work to make it a reality had to be selected. “I had looked at glass, composite stones, lacquered finished boards and many other solutions,” explained Hamilton. “When Krion was first shown to me I very quickly understood its properties and its potential as both an interior and exterior product. In particular the surface luster and tactile qualities appealed to me immediately as well as its durability and flexibility.”
The colors “Snow White” and “Red Fire” were selected from the numerous options available. “Snow White was chosen for a number of reasons,” explained Hamilton. “It had to reflect light around a fairly massive triple-height space without relying on tons and tons of artificial lighting. It is also a fantastic transition from Snow White to Red Fire to reclaimed Minnesotan barnwood [which was used in the bar and restaurant]. Another reason for choosing Snow White was that it compliments almost any color, texture or material that comes into contact with it. So much so we also used it to form the very large communal table in the upper lobby lounge as well as the boardroom table. The boardroom table was particularly important since this location is the Blu that is closest to Carlson’s world headquarters, which is just 10 minutes’ drive from the hotel.”
However, Hamilton still had to sell the developers on why this solid surface product was the right fit. Mortenson, a large U.S. construction firm that was joint developer on the project, was also serving as the general contractor, and working with a material they weren’t familiar with was a difficulty to getting the project off the ground.
“[Mortenson is] a massive contractor and they hadn’t used the material before,” recalled Hamilton, “so that was a hard sell to convince them to import a product from Spain. Once the guys had seen the product, had visited the factory and had tried their hand at working with it, then they really bought into the process.”
Once everyone was on board with the design and the material choice, it came down to figuring out exactly how to make it happen.
Fabrication
While Mortenson was serving as the general contractor, it was determined that an aluminum substructure would have to be built to hold the solid surface sheets in place. So, Minnesota-based MG McGrath was subcontracted to do the designing, engineering, fabrication and installation of the wall. At this point, in June of 2012, the design of the project has already taken about 2 years, and construction on the main building for the hotel had already begun about a year before. The hotel was expected to be completed in early 2013 so it could officially open its doors in March.
MG McGrath is a company mostly dedicated to metal working that has a lot of experience fabricating and installing custom architectural panel systems. However, the company had no experience in fabricating solid surface. This, along with the tight timeframe, meant two things: 1) a team of MG McGrath workers would have to be trained in solid surface fabrication; and 2) additional assistance would be needed in developing the system that MG McGrath would ultimately fabricate and then use to install the panels.
A group of 12 people from MG McGrath was put together to manage the project and were sent to Spain where they received training on the material’s properties and fabrication methods. Then Butech, another company under the Porcelenosa umbrella and sister-company to Systempool (manufacturer of Krion), was brought in to work with MG McGrath in devising a system suitable to make the project a reality.
Butech was created in 2001 with the aim of supporting the work of all of the professionals involved in the ceramic tile-laying sector. However, the firm’s commitment towards the training and qualification of its technical team together with its constant research to provide new construction solutions led to the enlargement of its product range. Among its expertise was the development of systems for the hanging of ventilated facades, such as the wall at the Radisson Blu.
Leveraging its years of expertise, Butech undertook the work of finding possible solutions to the dilemma of the project’s substructure that would both work well and be economically feasible. Through the use of modeling, in which they could examine the conditions, open joints and different planes involved, a method was developed (see Figure 3) and the model was sent to MG McGrath for fabrication.
