Grand Casino Prilly at Sugarloaf Mountain
Today marks the end of the International fib Symposium on the Conceptual Design of Structures, which took place in Rio de Janeiro from 14 to 16 May. Among the conference participants at Sugarloaf Mountain was LMP ambassador Patrick Valeri, project manager at our Lausanne branch. He was involved as a member of the Scientific Committee and chaired a technical session. He also gave a presentation on the Grand Casino Prilly project, a challenging transformation project which he is overseeing alongside Burckhardt as project manager for structural engineering.
In the outskirts of Lausanne, Switzerland, a new set of buildings is emerging to make a contemporary neighborhood. Next to several new high-rise buildings (for example Tilia Tower), also the transformation of the existing structures is a challenge for designers that limits the environmental footprint of the construction industry.
The Grand Casino Prilly is an example of a heavy transformation, where a wide set of architectural and structural requirements are encountered. To find the right balance between costs, architectural design and sustainable construction, the structural engineering uses various solutions to modify, retrofit and add structural elements. Top floors are replaced with mixed timber-concrete slabs and prestressed beams; the lower slabs are strengthened with UHPFRC (Ultra-High-Performance Fiber-Reinforced Concrete); and the foundations are retrofitted with micropiles. An excellent example of modern construction that integrates 3D design methods with a creative design procedure in order to find the correct balance between the different requirements.
