Creative structural design and engineering has been essential in transforming a nearly 150-year-old former orphanage into a 74-room boutique hotel in the Lower Garden District of New Orleans. The $22.5-million Hotel St. Vincent project is nearing completion.

恢复需要完全污染，翻新和转换该物业的五座历史指定建筑物，以创建71,500平方英尺的豪华酒店，并为每个房间提供新建的6,000平方英尺的活动空间和私人阳台。

建筑可以追溯到1800年代末,当they housed the St. Vincent’s Infant Asylum. The project team had to reengineer the load-bearing masonry building envelope, restore historic details and manage all of the logistical complexities that come with restoring a 19th-century property.

With so many moving parts, historic restorations like the St. Vincent project can involve 50 to 75 professionals before a shovel ever hits the ground, says Nicholas Moldaner, project executive for general contractor Palmisano, which specializes in historic hotel projects.

“历史悠久的精品酒店项目是商业设计和建筑行业中最复杂的项目类型之新利18备用网址一，”摩尔达尔说。“历史结构的身体限制和恶化的条件，结合创造一次性客人体验的目标，在一个大型多样的项目团队中创造了非凡的协作水平。”

该项目团队包括多家基于新奥尔良的公司：Palmisano担任设计辅助承包商，建筑师Metrostudio，结构工程师PACE Group LLC，机械工程师Emb LLC和开发人员KuppermanCos。Austin的Lambert McGuire Design的Austin设计。

When complete, the St. Vincent will feature two restaurants, four bars, three commercial kitchens and a landscaped courtyard with a cabana, swimming pool and onsite parking.

Five buildings, one hotel

One of the more challenging aspects of the project is preserving the historic elements, says Ken Gowland, principal with MetroStudio. Three of the buildings were connected by a series of multistory galleries, and people would use the gallery balconies to walk from building to building. “Much of the original building circulation occurred on the exterior, so developing a new plan really forced some creative thinking,” Gowland says.

通过3D建模，建筑团队能够在项目开始时绘制现有条件。然后，团队在整个拆除和施工中都根据需要更新模型。他们依靠这些模型来对恢复进行故障排除，同时保持历史性元素完整。

The buildings’ interiors had been heavily modified over the years, and the campus had become rundown. But the two original grand staircases were largely intact. The team preserved these stairs and extended the staircase with a new matching portion between the third and fourth floors.

他们还发现了隐藏的装饰铸铁组件，以及孤儿院原始教堂的石膏和磨坊细节。建筑师使用打捞的组件来重新创建铣削细节。

外,团队致力于救助French Quarter-style cast-iron exterior rails and balconies. The architect wanted to restore the cast iron in a way that made it stand out from the rest of the structure. “The nature of this material makes standard steel repair strategies almost useless,” says Brandon Stevens, senior architect with MetroStudio. “The architectural team developed a series of bespoke details to reinforce and repair these components that are basically invisible and allow the beauty of these details to come through.”

该项目团队保留了其他外部元素，其中包括钟楼上的石像鬼和一个大理石标头，上面刻有“ St.文森特的婴儿庇护所”在该物业的杂志街入口处。每个房间的船员将超过12,000平方英尺的外部走廊转换为私人阳台。他们还恢复并重新安排了所有门和窗户，并在整个物业中使用了法国四分之一风格的摊铺机来补充历史悠久的砖块。

Engineering stronger walls

After a century and a half of aging and modifications, the St. Vincent buildings had deteriorated and needed extensive masonry repairs. Before any framing work could begin, the project team had to complete these numerous structural improvements. One of the primary challenges involved repairing the exterior clay masonry and other structural elements that date back to the 19th century.

“The building ... utilized not only heavy timber and load-bearing masonry but also built-up iron beams, cast-iron columns and an early version of cast-in-place concrete,” Stevens says. “We had to work with a variety of strategies to address structural repairs and load path modifications that worked with all these various systems.”

在使用承载砌体的建筑封装时，水分入侵是一个关键问题。Gowland说：“这些建筑物是一个真正的挑战，尤其是在像新奥尔良一样炎热的潮湿气候中，每年有超过65英寸的降雨。”“当您将现代冷却，通风和排气带入这样的建筑物时，您会面临许多挑战，在这些建筑物中，散装水管理和蒸气驱动器对项目性能构成了巨大的风险。”

To repel moisture, the team repaired deficiencies on the exterior walls and introduced waterproofing details that fit into the historic aesthetic of the buildings.

工程和建筑团队对外部砌体墙进行了广泛的分析，以确定现有墙如何应对水分和温度变化。在此过程的早期，工程师创建了砌体条件的模型并模拟了各种气候，以更好地了解在一年的天气周期中温度和水分如何流过砌体。EMB LLC项目工程师Fletcher Luke说：“这有助于我们预期一些潜在的问题，并为我们的负载和新鲜空气需求提供了信息。”

To negate some of the moisture issues the engineers observed in their analysis, they installed dedicated outdoor air units to pressurize each building, Luke says.

Group LLC,结构工程师,也箴言ided reality capture services including drone footage, laser scanning and Matterport scanning, which allowed stakeholders to start off with an accurate, as-built model, as well as a web-based platform to document, view and comment on structural repairs. One issue the architect and structural engineer discovered was that the property’s previous owners used incompatible portland mortar materials for masonry maintenance, and the use of these materials compromised the integrity of the masonry, Gowland says. “The architectural and structural team developed an extensive package of masonry fixes ... to address the broad range of challenges at the site,” he says.

Another structural concern was that the original buildings were set on soil-supported corbeled masonry footings, and introducing new loads could create settlement risks. “Piles and reinforced concrete grade beams and pile caps did not exist during the time of the original construction,” Gowland says. The architect worked with PACE Group to develop strategies to mitigate any risks, including an extensive stormwater management plan required by the city of New Orleans. Because the plan called for detaining stormwater onsite, PACE Group’s civil engineers helped develop a solution.

“This project required much creativity to solve the many structural issues the team discovered, such as new load pathing and restoring historic masonry load-bearing walls, but also developing a compliant stormwater management plan employing different strategies, such as TruGrid permeable paving, French drains and planter beds with MetroStudio and the landscape architect, VIDA, based in Costa Rica,” says PACE Group's Johann Palacios, civil and structural engineer of record.

Making room for utilities

The project’s heating, cooling and utilities systems required special considerations when it came to incorporating them into the historic structures. “In all cases, we had to be extremely mindful of impacts to the appearance of the building, noise issues and structural concerns,” Gowland says.

The owner’s specifications called for an HVAC system with variable refrigerant flow, or VRF technology. “While these systems are highly flexible, they do require an ample amount of real estate at building exteriors for the condensing gear,” Gowland says.

3D建模是制定添加此基础架构的策略的关键。Gowland说：“拥有进化的模型，我们可以战略性地研究这些问题，并绝对协助将这些施工要求传达给GC。”

The project’s engineering and architectural team spent nearly six months testing different strategies that would allow them to preserve the building’s historic appearance while incorporating utilities. “Space is always a premium on projects such as these, especially when you are integrating infrastructure into a building that never had it as part of its original program,” Luke says.

Based on past experience, the engineer determined it would be essential to design the project’s infrastructure early in the schematic design process so both designs could take place simultaneously. This would allow the engineer and architect to design around both sets of needs. “You can’t wait to bring these components in later,” Luke says. “The realities need to get in the plan on Day 1.”

完成之路

圣文森特酒店’s rebirth is approaching the finish line after a series of events going back a decade, along with setbacks throughout 2020.

Developer Zach Kupperman saw the potential in the property when he first put in an offer in 2011. At the time, the St. Vincent was operating as a hostel known as the St. Vincent’s Guest House, and the owners were not yet ready to sell. Kupperman finally purchased the property in 2017 with a vision to transform it into a high-end neighborhood hotel.

In developing the project, Kupperman had to consider the character of the neighborhood along with the challenges of reconstructing deteriorated old buildings, and he attended 80 neighborhood association meetings to get the community’s buy-in.

“We didn’t want to do something the neighborhood didn’t want. So we spent a lot of time collaborating with the Lower Garden District Association,” he says.

A few months after construction began in September 2019, the project encountered staffing-related slowdowns and fabrication delays when the pandemic hit. Then the project faced site closures during the highly active 2020 hurricane season. Five storms made landfall in Louisiana but did not result in any physical damages to the project, Moldaner says.

Despite those setbacks, Kupperman is seeing his vision come to fruition. “For the most part, we’re on track for where we need to be,” he says.

The project team is completing final touches on the project in advance of the hotel’s scheduled opening in May.