One of the largest luxury airport hotels in Europe, the 608-bedroom, five-star Arora Sofitel Hotel is located adjacent to T5 at Heathrow. The extensive basement houses one of London’s largest conference facilities. Top-down construction techniques were used to control ground movements during construction of the 12m-deep basement, which is situated 10m from the Piccadilly Underground line. Distinctive structural features include five atria linking the hotel blocks and an impressive 40m pedestrian bridge, comprising two 20m spans, which connect the hotel to the T5 car park and airport terminal. The hotel accommodation blocks are constructed of pre-cast concrete wall and slab elements.

Key Innovations

An integrated substructure and superstructure construction methodology accelerated the construction programme by ‘jump starting’ the hotel superstructure while top-down substructure construction progressed below.

Other innovations include the extensive use of roll-mat reinforcement for the basement raft, thereby dramatically reducing the number of operatives working within the basement and reducing the construction period within this zone.

RBG was engaged by LOR as structural and civil engineering designers and for input into construction methodology.