Skanska UK Building has officially handed over the £36.5 million Radisson SAS Hotel at Stansted Airport a full seven weeks ahead of schedule.
The four star hotel has 500 rooms, four separate restaurants, a ballroom and function area, a health club, an extensive meeting room complex and is the only hotel to be linked to Stansted’s main terminal building, which it does via a covered walkway. The project was carried out on a full design and build basis and benefited from several innovative fast-track processes resulting in a final programme period of only 89 weeks, with Fixtures, fitting and equipment carried out by Radisson.
The five-storey high atrium is covered by a prefabricated roofing system called ‘Rannda’, by Prater Roofing, which comprises pre-finished panels that were secured into place in only four days. The atrium houses a bar and restaurants, the centrepiece being a 13m high glass wine tower,
The 500 bedrooms have prefabricated en suite bathroom “pods”, manufactured by EJ Badekabiner from Denmark, which arrive fully tiled and plumbed and which only require final connections to mains supplies. The bathroom pods were inserted into the rooms before the façade cladding was installed.
Another notable example is the use of a spray-on plaster coating for internal walls, known as Sprutspackel. The use of this product significantly reduced the amount of time needed on internal works and ensured that the accommodation could be fitted out quickly and to a high standard.
Skanska UK has extensive experience in fast-track construction techniques, which have been extensively used on its PFI custodial schemes. It widely acknowledges the benefits that can be derived from the use of prefabricated units, both from a time efficiency standpoint, but also in reducing noise and disruption to the local community.
“We were very pleased to be involved in this project to develop the Radisson SAS Hotel at Stansted Airport. Working closely with our client throughout the scheme enabled us to construct the first hotel on the Airport site, to their exact specification and required quality,” says Peter Coote, Executive Vice President, Skanska UK.