Shortly after starting the Aliva “Andes” project, the name chosen for our headquarters in Argentina, and following the interest expressed by a local ceramic distributor, we have taken contact with this work located right at the foot of the Andes, the backbone of the South American continent.
A project of the DP&ASOCIATES office located in the very town centre that, with its 17 floors (approximately 87 metres high), is the highest building of the town. An overall surface of 28.000 sqm distributed between 180 rooms (with a spectacular view on the town and the Cordillera), 2 restaurants, a bar, gym, spa, swimming pool, casino, underground parking facilities, meeting rooms and a ballroom, making it the newest and most luxurious 5-star hotel in town.
The project is composed of 2 different bodies:
The basement, with a natural granite enclosure, and a tower coated with porcelain stoneware tiles.
An innovative and prestigious solution for both volumes, in order to meet the investors’ requirements and guarantee safety and technical safeguards.
Among the problems that the Aliva technical staff had to face were the seismic problem, which is rather accentuated in that area, and the strong wind gusts coming from both the Cordillera and the Atlantic Ocean.
Despite being a building with two distinct volumes (the basement and the tower), their structural behaviour is the same as a single body. This feature has eased the solution regarding seismic movements, leaving only the problem caused by wind thrusts to be solved.
The ALI MK system was selected as the most suitable structure for coating the basement. This “hidden” fixing system (meeting the designers’ requirements) is composed L-shaped beams for anchoring the structure to the wall (almost entirely made with reinforced concrete), T-shaped vertical profiles with grooves at their ends where the clips for anchoring the natural granite slabs are housed.
The granite slabs that have been installed are 66 cm high, 132 cm wide and have a thickness of 2 cm, with kerf cuts on the lower and upper edge of the horizontal side for the insertion of the aforementioned steel fixing clips.
As for the tower coating, on the other hand, the ALI KL system with visible fastenings was selected, although, due to the features of this project (building dimensions) and the inaccessibility of the area in which this system is located, make these fastenings practically invisible.
This system is composed of L-shaped brackets for fixing the structure to the wall (also in this area carried out with reinforced concrete curtain walls), T-shaped vertical profiles where stainless steel plates equipped with clips for fastening the porcelain stoneware slabs are riveted. Apart from being technically guaranteed, this system offers an excellent quality/price ratio.