The worldwide Accor hotel chain operates a number of brands pitched at different sectors of the market, from the value brands Formule 1 and Ibis through All Seasons to the Novotel and Sofitel brands at the upper end of the market.
The presence of these brands throughout the world assures users that wherever they go, they will receive consistent standards of service, and this is especially true of the Ibis and Formule 1 brands, even down to the appearance of the hotels.
To achieve this while maintaining competitive value the Accor chain has devised advanced precast building systems that allow motels to be built quickly without sacrificing construction quality.
In Australia designs devised in France have been adopted to suited local conditions and building standards, with local suppliers providing the precast panels to the Accor design. Suppliers generally vary according to the location of the hotel.
The Formule 1 design includes precast floor, wall and roof (or sometimes a traditional truss roof system), while the Ibis has a structural steel roof. Both designs use factory-built bathroom modules, with the Ibis units coming from France while the Formule 1 units are made locally.
The Formule 1 design incorporates a breakfast/dining area and a self-serve buffet/preparation area, while the Ibis designed has a commercial kitchen, dining area and bar. The Ibis design also includes a lift. The kitchen/dining/bar area is located at the join of the two wings, and is a single level structure with a metal roof.
Accor uses its own project managers, and appoints builders and subcontractors for each project.
A 107-room Ibis hotel has recently been built at Thornleigh in Sydney, while a 99-room unit was built in Newcastle. The standard design is an L-shaped building, generally four floors high, with the lift tower in the corner. The number of rooms in each wing is varied to modify the size of the building to the local demand.
Rescrete supplied panels for these hotels, with the largest weighing 11t. Whyco Crane Services stationed a 70t Liebherr LTM 1070/42 all terrain crane on the Thornleigh site for the duration of the project, where Coleman & Fairbairn was the builder.
Whyco's lifting supervisor for the project Paul Churchill was impressed with the ease and speed of erection, and predicts a bright future for this type of precast construction.
The hotel was erected a floor at a time, with mastic joints formed between panels. Plates were used to join the panels during construction. All panels had preformed voids for services, which were fed through these voids as work progressed. The bathroom modules were lowered into the rooms, and quickly joined to the water and waste services.
Fitout commenced when the ground floor panel erection was completed, which in the case of the IBIS Thornleigh was 14 days after the first panel was placed (total panel erection took 39 days). The buildings used double-glazed UPVC windows for acoustic purposes.
The increasing use of precast building methods, with their increased speed of construction and decreased labour requirements, has created opportunities for the crane industry.