Looking around the lobby of the W Hoboken Hotel & Residences in Hoboken, N.J., you’ll notice flexible stainless-steel metal fabric panels from Cambridge, Md.-based Cambridge Architectural that elegantly veil the main lobby wall, adding a stylish and engaging backdrop to the upscale hotel’s interior.
Completed in 2009, the hotel is situated on the waterfront, just across the Hudson River from Manhattan. With 225 hotel rooms and 40 residences, the W Hoboken offers world-class services and a matching environment. Featuring a restaurant, theme bar, spa, lounge, ballroom, conference center and meeting rooms, the 200,000-square-foot (18,580-m2) hotel serves as a chic, sophisticated landmark in the midst of bustling nightlife and other metropolitan amenities. To complement the opulent atmosphere, Cambridge Architectural’s metal fabric wraps the entire lobby wall and reflects colored light, creating a flowing effect down the wall and behind the hotel’s welcome desk.
“The metal mesh-clad wall serves as a continuous backdrop to the W Hotel’s signature “living room” lounge and traces the pathway of the main hotel and residence circulation zone,” said Tom Florkewicz, RA, associate at Gwathmey Siegel & Associates Architects, New York, N.Y. “To enhance the effect of the continuous, cove mounted, LED lighting to “graze” the wall’s surface, we proposed a surface that would have a three-dimensional quality and would capture, reflect and refract the lighting from above, to produce a vibrant “sparkle” on the wall. The Cambridge mesh utilized met these design criteria, while providing a cost-effective material to achieve the desired effect.”
“We were very happy with Cambridge’s mesh and the lighting dynamics it created,” said James Ronga, vice president of development for Applied Development Co., Hoboken, the building developer. “It lends the perfect solution and ambiance to the lobby, spanning from floor to ceiling.”
Specified for the W Hoboken’s lobby primarily for its high-end style and mood, the Cambridge LandscapeInteriors architectural mesh system serves as a fitting focal point of the interior space. Accenting the lobby wall’s elegant wood veneer paneling, it allows the grid pattern created by the wood panels to be seen through the metal fabric material, resulting in a pristine-looking wall surface that’s virtually indestructible. AJD Construction, Leonardo, N.J., was the contractor/installer.
The LandscapeInteriors system was fabricated with mesh in Cambridge’s Shade pattern, and was installed using a new attachment method called Micro-Eclipse, which allows the metal fabric panels to be installed in tension, but much closer to the wall than ever before.
Cambridge and the W Hoboken Hotel & Residences design team utilized a design-build approach for the project that helped the team better understand the product while allowing Cambridge to develop an effective solution by being involve in the entire process.
“The use of the mesh in this manner, in concert with the lighting, reinforced the creation of a visually stimulating environment that would welcome guests and residents alike in a dynamic way,” Florkewicz said. “Choosing to use this mesh—a stainless-steel product—was consistent with the overall modern design approach to the architecture, and the materials utilized throughout, but it also provided the opportunity to introduce an unexpected, unique solution to this design challenge; a theme of the material selection and use throughout the project.”
Cambridge Architectural, www.cambridgearchitectural.com
