Hyatt Place Portland Old Port

Photos

credits: photos 4,5,9,12: David Lamb. 6,10,11: Corey Templeton. 7,8, Irvin Serrano

Project Name

Hyatt Place Portland Old Port

The design of the Hyatt Place Hotel, Portland Old Port inserts a program typically developed on a suburban site onto a tight urban infill lot, with physical constraints on four sides. Its proposed location at a significant street intersection activated by small-shop retail and eateries engendered two design goals: to engage the pedestrian life at street level and to address the important intersection.

The design solution participates with the street by folding the ground level glazing in and out, weaving through the building’s columns. This provides sunny eddies in the pedestrian stream on the exterior, and creates oblique lines of site from the interior seating areas out to the building facades of the old port district.

When the weaving wall, constrained by the six story mass above, reaches the corner, it climbs vertically and energetically, as if escaping from under pressure, creating a visual compression and release effect. As expressed in a preliminary design sketch, the folded glass plates climb like pleats on a dancers dress: creases, angles, slants, & twists.

The design effort then became to reinforce this figure/ground effect, where the remainder of the building façade is reticent in response to the ebullience of the corner glazing. The compressed limestone rainscreen panel was custom color-batched to match slate samples from a Maine quarry, and detailed with minimal interruption: there is no aluminum sill-flashing at windows or exposed coping at the roof parapet.

The site constraints included a lack of laydown space and an adjacent electrical substation. These were overcome by designing to accommodate prefabricated wall panels, which were constructed offsite and lifted on to the building in a carefully orchestrated sequence. This provided an exceptionally high degree of quality oversight, and allowed for winter assembly in controlled environmental conditions. An underground high-voltage power duct bank that serves downtown Portland runs below the porte cochere.

The building incorporates a natural gas 10Kw micro-turbine that provides electricity while generating domestic hot water from the excess combustion heat. High efficiency mechanical and conveying equipment was installed, and the system was fully commissioned. Low flow plumbing fixtures and LED lighting were specified throughout.

The design team worked with two local artists to create custom light fixtures for the lobby bar. Polycarbonate sheets were cut and heat molded, then coated with resin. Hung from the ceiling and illuminated from above, they create a kelp-like variegation of color and translucency.

Architecture or A/E Firm Name

Canal 5 Studio

Architect

Timothy Hart, AIA LEED-AP

Team

Patrick Costin AIA LEED-AP Design Principal, Timothy Hart AIA LEED-AP Project Architect, Lodrys Gomez Project Designer, James Gauthier AIA LEED-AP BD+C, Jessica Johnson AIA LEED-AP

Consultants

o Civil Engineer: Woodard & Curran, 41 Hutchins Dr., Portland ME 04102. Barry Sheff, Senior Project Manager, Denise Cameron, Project Engineer o Structural Engineer: Becker Structural Engineers, 75 York St., Portland, ME. Paul Becker, PE, President, Dan Burne PE, Project Manager o MEP Engineer: Bennett Engineering, 17 Bennett Rd., Freeport, ME 04032. William Bennett, JR. President, Stephen Doel , PE, Mechancal, Patrick Cotter, Electrical o Curtainwall Consultant: Bellwether Design Technologies, 409 Alfred St., Biddeford ME 04005. Brian Harrington, Principal o Lighting Consultant: Greg Day Lighting, 100 Front St., Bath ME, 04530. Greg Day IESNA, LC, President o Landscape Architect: Anthony Muench Landscape, 94 Commercial St., Portland, ME. Anthony Muench, ASLA, President

Location

433 Fore St., Portland, ME 04101

Client

o Client: East Brown Cow Management, Inc., 100 Commercial St., Portland, ME 04101. Tim Soley, Owner. Owners Project Representative: Shinberg Consulting, Greg Shinberg, Owner

General Contractor

o Contractor: Consigli Construction, 15 Franklin St., Portland ME 04101. David Thomas, Project Executive, Tim Schneider, Project Manager, Jerry Dorval, Site Supervisor