2008 Precast Winner

Canad Inn

The Canad Inns is a 220,000 square foot, 192-room hotel located adjacent to the community’s indoor arena / convention center in Grand Forks, North Dakota. The owner’s vision for the facility was to be a “beacon of hospitality” and to become the premier hotel in the Upper Red River Valley. As the Canadian hotel chain’s first facility in the United States, portraying the company’s avant-garde up-andcoming image was a primary of the design challenge. In order to convey the hi-tech, modern philosophy of the hotel chain, an intersecting collage of exposed fastener metal panel systems was utilized on the 13-story exterior of the facility. With the owner-dictated typical floorplate of 16 rooms per level, the massing of the tower was tall, but also considerably wide. To highlight the owner’s “beacon of hospitality” vision, the metal panel systems were designed to accentuate the height on the north and south elevations, while leaving ample room on the east and west elevations for the owner’s branding. The large, boxy, grid-like pattern of the guestroom windows also presented a challenge to creating the ‘vertical’ tower affect. Since the window placement was not easily altered, the use of precast concrete flutes on the exterior also helped to break the window grid, accented the vertical lines, and also hinted to the hidden precast concrete structure beneath envelope. The program for the hotel consists of guest rooms, administration areas, and multiple tenant fitup areas for future services businesses and restaurants. The layout extends the main concourse of the existing events center past the hotel lobby and the hotel’s various services. The length of the concourse is visually broken down by reversing the five-degree angle of the existing events center’s concourse at the hotel’s main lobby. This concourse is designed to direct traffic flow from the events center into the hotel, while also offering interior protection for pedestrians moving from the event center to the northern parking lots of the complex. An intersecting concourse running East to West serves the hotel’s primary pedestrian traffic, connection the hotel’s dedicated parking areas on the east and west sides of the facility. The skylight along this “main street” also visually accentuates the hotel’s signature tower design to its visitors, while projecting natural daylight for the circulation route and the adjacent business / retail spaces. The Canad Inns project allowed the design team to explore the use of metal panel systems, precast concrete and galvanized steel in a series of layers that both complimented the owner’s high-tech, industrial-yet modern tastes, while also maintaining a cost effective design that respected the owner’s budget.

Owner: Canad Corporation of Manitoba, Ltd.	Entered by: Concrete Inc. & Aggregate Industries
Architect: Johnson Laffen Galloway Architects, Ltd.	Structural Engineer: Engineer: Heyer Engineering, PC
Precast Supplier: Concrete, Inc.	Contractor: Community Contractors, Inc.