The Adina Apartment Hotel Melbourne Southbank is a 220-room Bates Smart-designed apartment hotel, at the intersection of Southbank Boulevard and City Road in Melbourne’s bustling cultural precinct and is also Australia’s first cross-laminated timber (CLT) hotel and the tallest timber adaptive-reuse project.
The hotel’s five-star green credentials inlcude cross-laminated timber - a non-toxic, renewable resource that has a long-life cycle, is fire resistant, highly sustainable that and offers superior strength and stability when compared to common structural materials.
According to Bates Smart director Julian Anderson, around 5,300 tonnes of CLT was used in the construction of the hotel, in turn offsetting around 4,200 tonnes of C02 from the atmosphere.
“In addition to reduced carbon emissions, cross-laminated timber incorporates several sustainability benefits, including lower transport costs and time saving advantages from off-site manufacturing,” he says. “It also presents a more sustainable approach to increasing density within our cities.”
Timber for the hotel was sourced from suppliers with Forest Stewardship Council certification* - one of only two internationally recognised forest certification networks - and an electric crane was used to limit noise impact during construction. Modular bathrooms were also manufactured off-site to reduce build waste.
“To create the 220-room accommodation tower, an additional ten levels* were able to be built on the existing concrete building, providing 13,000 square metres of new floor space,” says Anderson. “This combines to make Adina Melbourne Southbank the world’s tallest mass timber vertical extension.”
TFE Hotels’ Chief Operating Office, Chris Sedgwick, says Adina Apartment Hotels as a brand had wholeheartedly embraced the concept of design-driven hotels, and had a swag of contemporary new-build hotels in the pipeline
“Internally, the hotel’s design has taken inspiration from the architecture,” Sedgwick says. “The ground floor lobby is lined with timber, aligning with the new method of construction, which exudes a warm and welcoming ambience in shared public spaces.”
Curved walls also distinguish the space and complement the curved façade and graceful lines of the new 10-level timber extension. In keeping with its green roots, the hotel also has an energy management system integrated into each room, to automatically control the HVAC system.
The hotel is set to open later this year.
