- Hotel: 136 rooms and 12 luxurious suites as well as condominiums
- Building: 15 storeys with two separate towers
- Tons of structural steel: 6,300
- Category: commercial
- Owner: CWB Boylston LLC
- Architect: CBT/Childs Bertman Tseckares
- Client: Suffolk Construction
- Design: Supermetal Structures
- Opening: October 8, 2008
By the end of the 19th century, French architecture had left an indelible mark on the style of the elegant Black Bay-area townhouses in Boston. Today, it's an Asian influence that informs the elegance of a building destined to become a Boston landmark -- the new Mandarin Oriental Hotel, part of the trend.
The complexity of this project was the result of 650 transfer beams combined with strict depth restrictions, requiring the designers to create 90 welded wide flange beams (WWF) in dimensions well beyond standard, which caused numerous discontinuities in the lateral system.
A total of 957 assembly sketches were produced by Supermetal's engineers in addition to standard connections generated by the 3D design system used in workshop drafting.
Several fabricated pieces exceeded regular transport weight and required special lifting procedures at erection. In fact, some pieces weighed more than 60 imperial tons. The engineers had to check the capacity of the existing subway in front of the building before installing the crane required to lift them. The rest of the building was erected by means of two tower cranes.
A system of lintels developed by the design engineers that transferred the perimeter brick load to concrete slabs was a great saving, in part because it eliminated the need for tubular posts to support the lintels.
At the extreme east side of the building, a passage links the hotel to boutiques in the commercial centre across the street. There are no apparent bolts in the visible steel. While the exterior dimensions of the passageway did not allow for its construction in one piece, we achieved this by manufacturing the vertical wall in the shop and making horizontal splices that were welded on site.