Buffalo, New York
aloft Airport Hotel, A Vision of W Hotels
- Architect
- 3di Architecture
- General Contractor
- Kulback's Construction, Inc.
- Size
- 90,000 Sq. Ft. 153 luxurious, Loft-like rooms on 6 floors
- Project Type
- State-of-the art Specialty Select Brand Hotel
Challenge
Keeping the construction of a six story, state of the art, Specialty Select Brand hotel on schedule during a Buffalo, NY winter.
Solution
Using the SHIELD™ curtain walls comprised of 6 inches solid EPS insulation and cold formed steel framing allowed the building to get closed in quickly.
Result
Sub trades were able to complete their work more efficiently in comfort sheltered from the brutal Buffalo winter.
Project was completed and opened on schedule despite the weather.
Why this approach fit
The challenge, solution and result above are the project record. What follows is commentary on why the approach suited the building.
The whole case study is about sequencing. A six-story hotel built through a Buffalo winter has one dominant risk, which is that the interior trades cannot work until the building is closed in, and every week they wait is a week of temporary heat spent warming a building that is still open to the weather.
Closing the shell early inverts that. Once the curtain wall is up the building holds heat, drywall and finishes can run on schedule, and the temporary heating bill drops to something that actually stays in the building. Guardian reports the sub-trades worked sheltered from the winter and the hotel opened on schedule despite the weather.
The assembly described here is a curtain wall of six inches of solid expanded polystyrene with cold-formed steel framing. The steel gives the panel its strength, the foam does the insulation, and because the steel sits in the EPS on the inside and outside faces rather than passing through it, neither interrupts the other.
For a hotel the operating case follows the construction one. Guest rooms are conditioned individually and occupancy swings hard, so an envelope that holds temperature reduces both the equipment size and the number of complaints about the room that is always too cold.
