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000815
2014-05-14

Hotel Intercontinental in Davos, Switzerland

In December 2013, a hotel with extraordinary architecture opened in Davos, Switzerland. The building has the shape of a “Golden Egg” and is situated on a mountainside.

The hotel is elliptical in shape with all corners rounded, and is constructed with reinforced concrete.

The structural analysis of the 3D model was performed by the German engineering office Sailer Stepan und Partner, who used structural analysis software RFEM by Dlubal Software. Furthermore, the structural engineers performed a comparative calculation by means of a beam analysis program.

Structure

The oval main building, with eleven stories, is based on three basement stories. In order to accommodate seminar rooms, restaurants, and a ballroom on the first floor, broader column grids were needed. Therefore, V‑shaped columns were arranged in the first floor. This way, it was possible to set up smaller and more efficient column grids in the upper floors. In addition, the V‑columns couple the ceiling of the first floor horizontally to the cellar.

The 10th floor, where the sky lounge is placed, spans an inner courtyard of a length of 112 ft. That is why, in this part of the building, a composite truss girder one story high was designed, to which the two composite beam ceilings of the 9th and 10th stories are monolithically connected.

As the building has been designed jointlessly, the truss girder was integrated into the building structure without displaceable connections. With its high flexural resistance, the girder connects the two stiffening cores at the top ends like a horizontal beam and is elastically restrained in the adjacent walls.

As the hotel building lies in seismic zone Z2 according to SIA 261, the corresponding seismic calculations were performed in addition to the structural analysis.

Structural Engineering Sailer Stepan und Partner GmbH, Ingenieure für Bauwesen VBI
Munich, Germany
www.tragwerk.team


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