A MULTI-ROOM WITH A VIEW
In June, Winvic’s multi-room department saw further expansion with the announcement of its first hotel project. Hotel La Tour, located in central Milton Keynes, boasts a fourteenth-floor sky bar and restaurant, which will offer panoramic scenes over Campbell Park and beyond, as well as a public access space called See:MK.
Also, within the 14-storey luxury hotel, you will find a 12,900 sq ft dedicated, flexible conference floor comprising adaptable and private meeting spaces and 261 luxury bedrooms. Four of the nine conference rooms can be converted into a single banqueting suite, which also opens onto a roof terrace. To enable it to take significant weights for large outdoor events, our design team and pHp Architects have designed the terrace to a particularly high load bearing specification. We chose to construct slipform cores to create the 50-metre-high concrete and steel framed building, and it’s the first time we have utilised this method; two cores, which will house four lifts and two stairways, can be seen to reach for the sky and six storeys of the concrete frame have already been completed (as of early November). As we’re maximising the benefits of off-site fabricated bathroom pods in the ‘Very Good’ BREEAM rated hotel, installation of these is now underway on floor two. Not only do off-site components present the opportunity to undertake works at earlier stages in the programme, but also luxury and consistent quality can be achieved effortlessly, and fewer trades working on site is very advantageous in the current socially distanced, Covid-19 environment.
From the outside, Hotel La Tour will be an attention-grabbing vision from its location at the highest point of the city due to stainless steel, mirror finish rainscreen cladding. The split-tower building will also have a 30-metre diameter stainless steel circle with a satin finish dominating its east facing façade; this will be illuminated with a bespoke projected LED installation at night acting as gateway sign to the city centre. We will also be installing extensive structural glazing and those people ascending to the 43-metre high top floor after completion in 2022 will enjoy their vertical ride in a panoramic lift.
RECENT BTR WINS
Aubrey Place, Milton Keynes
- Client and Fund: Packaged Living and Invesco
- Cost: £45-50 million
- Groundbreaking: January 2020
- Completion: April 2022
- Features: 294 one, two and three bedroom apartments, plus communal areas and a ground floor commercial unit
- Storeys: 10, 12, 14 and 18
- Compact city centre location, with the H shaped building extending to all four boundaries
- Significant earthworks to facilitate an undercroft car park and cycle stores for 47 vehicles and 294 bikes
- Reinforced concrete frame, poured in-situ
- Utilising the city’s Combined Heat and Power (CHP) energy station, removing the need for alternative renewable technologies and apartment boilers
- Aesthetically prominent design using four different brick types, including a striking green glass brick that will cover the whole of the ground floor’s exterior
Tyndall Street, Cardiff
- Client and Fund: IM Properties and Grainger Plc
- Cost: £40-45 million
- Groundbreaking: December 2019
- Completion: April 2022
- Features: 307 studio, one and two bedroom apartments, plus rooftop sky lounge/terrace and ground floor commercial units
- Storeys: 24
- Unusually tight site, with just 1.5m space between building’s façade and boundary
- Substantial piling operations and associated ground works through to construction and full fit out
- Reinforced concrete frame, poured in-situ with curtain walling and punchhole windows
- Striking external design utilising Glass Reinforced Concrete cladding in two contrasting greys with eye-catching copper in recesses
The Residences, Edgbaston
- Client and Fund: Patrizia and Warwickshire CCC
- Cost: £60-65m
- Groundbreaking: January 2021
- Completion: September 2023 (target)
- Features: 375 build-to-rent apartments, plus five ground floor retail/commercial units to include retail, food and beverage uses
- Storeys: 18
- In-situ concrete frame for the development, set over two blocks – the highest being 18 storeys
- Podium deck with undercroft car park creating 111 new resident spaces
- Rooftop residents’ amenity area and landscaped areas
- Improvements to Edgbaston Stadium including new entrance plaza, which alongside improved accessibility and 229 additional visitor spaces, significantly improves visitor experience
Jane Riley, Operations Director at Hotel La Tour
“We are very excited to be working with Winvic on the construction of Hotel La Tour Milton Keynes. The team at Winvic share our vision of bringing luxury accommodation and modern conference facilities to the heart of Milton Keynes.”
Mark Jones, Director of Multi-room
“We are naturally very proud to have been awarded our first hotel contract by Hotel La Tour, and our experience of constructing extremely high-quality build-to-rent and student accommodation schemes means we are well placed to deliver this exciting project. Partnership work behind the scenes to date has been efficient, particularly due to taking advantage of the end-to-end benefits BIM has to offer, and with architects pHp we are truly illustrating cost and resource savings by investing in this approach.”