InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown Hotel

The Wilshire Grand Center is a luxury, mixed-use skyscraper in the heart of Los Angeles. It has been constructed on the same site as the old hotel, which was demolished in 2012. Work on the skyscraper started on the 15^th of February, 2014 with a 20-hour pour of 16,500 m³ of concrete to form the foundation for the structure.

With its ornamental spire, 73 floors (plus 5 more below ground level) and a maximum height of 335.3 metres, it is the tallest building in the city and in the whole of California. The skyscraper was completed this summer and now houses the 900-room InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown Hotel, more than 37,000 m² of office space, various restaurants, shopping and commercial areas and a garage with 1,089 parking spaces on the lower floors.

Mapei played an important role in the installation of carpet flooring in the hotel. To ensure the work was carried out to perfection in compliance with eco-sustainable criteria, and that the flooring remains durable over the years, different products were used to prepare the surfaces and bond the floorings.

PREPARATION AND WATERPROOFING OF THE SURFACES

All the floors in the hotel were treated with ECO PRIM GRIP, a low odour, ready-to-use bonding promoter with very low emission of volatile organic compounds (VOC).

Once the surfaces had been treated, they were smoothed over and levelled with NOVOPLAN 2 PLUS, a self-levelling, rapid-hardening smoothing and levelling compound for new and existing substrates, to make them suitable for resilient and textile flooring in areas requiring good resis-
tance to loads and the levels of traffic typically found in offices and public areas.

MAPECEM QUICKPATCH ready-mixed, ready-to-use mortar, which is used to make controlled-shrinkage, rapid-setting and drying screeds, was used to repair the concrete surfaces, while PLANIPREP SC controlled-shrinkage, rapid-setting, fibre-reinforced cementitious mortar, was used as a final smoothing and levelling layer to guarantee the substrates were perfectly smooth and flat.

To alleviate the problem of moisture in certain areas of the cast concrete, the surfaces were treated with PLANISEAL VS before installing 450 m² of vinyl flooring by Altro.

This is a two-component, alkali-resistant epoxy product specifically developed to form a protective barrier against rising damp before installing floor coverings. PLANISEAL VS eliminates the waiting time for uncured concrete to dry out and enables installation of floor coverings to be anticipated. Apart from ECO PRIM GRIP, all these products are available on the American market.

INSTALLATION OF THE FLOOR COVERINGS

Once the preparation work on the substrates had been completed, two types of floor covering were installed in the hotel.

Around 800 m² of Shaw self-laying carpet tiles were installed using ULTRABOND ECO 810 adhesive. Apart from guaranteeing rapid drying times, ULTRABOND ECO 810 may be used for both “wet installation”, to bond carpet permanently in place, or left to dry and remain permanently tacky, if you wish to remove the carpet tiles and then reposition them to carry out maintenance work. The special formulation of ULTRABOND ECO 810 provides excellent resistance to moisture, which means flooring may also be installed on the surface of concrete before it is fully cured, as in this case. This product is available on the American market.

Most of the work went into the installation of almost 10,000 m² of Axminster carpet which had been imported by the Spanish company Alarwool. The flooring installers used ULTRABOND ECO 185, an adhesive in water dispersion with high initial tack and very low emission of volatile organic compounds (VOC).

Thanks to its characteristics, ULTRABOND ECO 185 ensures rapid, secure installation of carpet.

The logistics for the work was conditioned by the very tight delivery schedule and the versatile, reliable products supplied by Mapei was one of the decisive factors in guaranteeing completion of the work within the specified timeframe and preparing the hotel for its grand opening in the summer of 2017.


For further information see www.mapei.us