Project Leader Aga Gasanov at Bouwgroep Moonen, explains: “It is a special project in a special location. How often do you get to build right next to Rotterdam Airport?”

Bouwgroep Moonen was asked by its clients to build a hotel with a unique cladding. The construction of the project started in February 2020, but due to the COVID situation changes were made to the plans by the client.

“The hotel had to be COVID proof, so extra entrances and exits were added. An extra staircase was added. We also had to deal with the corona measures on the building site. Finally, the environment also made its demands. If you put a crane down, you have to put a lamp on it because of the air traffic, for example.”

Commercial Manager Bas Punte: “Not to mention the cladding.” In the architect’s design, half of the cladding consisted of Accoya and the other half of plants.

The client wanted us to use sustainable materials for the cladding – hence the choice of Accoya. In the preliminary stages, we sat down with the client to engineer the entire structure of the cladding, partly due to the requirements for fire safety. The cladding construction is so unique that it does not appear in the standard certifications. We had to make a new certification, but before we could do so, we received many questions. One of them was from the municipality of Rotterdam, which sets the bar high when it comes to fire safety. We sat down with suppliers, subcontractors, consultants, structural engineers and the municipality. By sharing our knowledge and expertise, we were able to write several reports that the municipality needed in terms of fire safety and construction.”

Distributor: Boogaerdt Hout

Commissioned by: distribution partner Stiho BV

Architect: Arc3 Design, Engineering and Construction Management, Eindhoven

Contractor: Moonen Construction Group