During the first phase of our project, we located a site, and completed the schematic design of the building. We located a site in Victoria park next to the Elbow river which is a prime location for new construction. After examining the site and reviewing the specific land use bylaw we spent a class using a whiteboard to form the general shape of our building. We wanted to include a riverfront path to allow guests at the hotel to enjoy this beautiful aspect of our site, as well as a rooftop patio which would be especially useful for summertime events and stampede firework viewing. Initially we had agreed on an eight storey building, however after discussions with our instructors and our advisors at NORR, we expanded to maximize our floor area ratio currently permitting us to reach 25 storey’s. We dedicated the first 3 floors to amenity spaces, and left the rest for hotel suites. Next we shaped our building to conform to our site, the main entrance was required to be along First Street, so we followed the road line for the podium. Then we wanted to follow the form of the river so setting back the facade 6 meters from our property line to allow for a riverfront path we angled the south building face towards the river. Our east building face was formed by the need for a loading stall, and car access being easiest from park road on the east. We pushed the building face back 6 meters to allow room for delivery and garbage trucks. At the rear setback we pushed our building in to allow for above ground parking. We left enough room for 2 rows of parking stalls, with overflow parking being provided by the surrounding lots. We had discussed this with NORR and they mentioned that they had a similar design philosophy with the project they are currently developing on the site. For the hotel suites we wanted to maximize the visibility from the tower. Initially we had designed two towers parallel to each other, however since 2 fire escapes would be required for each tower we decided to connect them on the north side, allowing more rooms per floor and a higher percent of usable space. We angled the corners of the U shaped tower to offer larger rooms with better views of the river and stampede respectively. We struggled with the positioning of our vertical transportation, but after our most recent meetings with NORR and our instructors, we pushed our staircases to each side eliminating dead ends corridors and left the elevators in a central location. We took inspiration from these discussions as well by putting the elevators against the facade and featuring a curtain wall next to them, providing views of the river and offering another incentive to visit our proposed hotel. After arranging the rooms to maximize leasable space, we were finished with our preliminary design.

As we continue to progress in our project, we have changed the shape of the tower several times, as well as rearranging the positioning of our vertical transportation. One of our largest changes was adding a ground level interior parking lot. this forced us to reconsider the circulation, but made our waste removal easier. having a room in the parkade.

View our design development presentation here