Double curvature, a special project for the Banyan Tree Doha Vertigo Restaurant

What is double-curvature? Here we’ll talk about how we furnished a luxurious location thanks to a methodology approach we have now standardized. From the parametric design to the digital fabrication of the surface, our approach lets us optimize installation time and give the right assembly data.  Specifically, this project has brought our project managers and joiners to the Vertigo restaurant worksite, on the 28th floor of the Banyan Tree Doha hotel…

Banyan Tree Doha is a well-known brand new building in Doha, recently opened, that welcomes 7-stars luxury suites and apartments. On the 28th floor of this tower-hotel are the lounge and the Vertigo restaurant, which take all length of the floor.

This high – as you might guess – it is possible to enjoy an astonishing 360 degrees view of the entire city, thanks to the presence of floor-to-ceiling glazed walls that surround you.

The 28th floor of Banyan Tree Doha is more than 10 meter high and welcomes the lounge and Vertigo restaurant and includes a mezzanine floor too.  

Original double-curving walls for the Vertigo Restaurant

To enhance the wideness of the floor, the French designer Jacques Garcia has conceived double-curving walls in American black walnut wood. The installation of these original walls envelopes the central lift structure, hiding it and defining the layout of the lounge, restaurant, and mezzanine.

As you can see in the pictures, the walls reach a 10-meter height and have different proportions, shapes, and heights.

The strong customization and the complexity of engineering and manufacture of such a project, brought the Client to Devoto Design since we had recently delivered the wooden canyon inside the National Museum of Qatar gift shops and children’s gift shop. (link below).

In this case, though, the fabrication challenges were others… 

The fabrication challenges

To manufacture and deliver the lounge and restaurant of the Banyan Tree Doha we took care of:

• Engineering, specifically the transformation of the complex shape into a construable one, thanks to the construction algorithmic modeling that can decompose the complex project surface into construable elements.
• Tessellation of the surface and optimization of the wood panels to obtain the wood pieces
• “Digital fabrication”, that is the workflow thanks to which the digital data of the parametric project can go straight to the CNC machines.
• And of course: Installation.

But the toughest challenge was that of facing this last part of the installation on-site during the surge of the pandemics.

Before we were able to complete the works we were forced to leave the site and complete the last few activities thanks to the help of the sole local workers. Thanks to remote coordination and control by our project managers and thanks to the capability of the local workers – who offered great support and service – we were able to complete the works and grant the best quality.

Self-supporting walls and tessellation

Different from the works delivered at the Qatar National Museum, the walls of the Banyan Tree Doha are self-supporting and anchored to the floor. This meant a different approach since the first project design activity, taking into account the presence of structural walls that – as you can imagine – represented some tight design bonds.

As for the fabrication of the wood pieces, though, we adopted a similar procedure as that of the National Museum to tessellate the surface.

To fabricate the double-curving walls we used more than 22.000 wood pieces..  

How we handled the delicate finishing activity

As you can see in the pictures, all surfaces are smooth and glossy. To get this result we had to set up a finishing operation on-site. We have decided to proceed with the final sanding and painting activities only after all walls had been installed. This was necessary because the wood – a “living material” could have had expanded, shrunk, or simply moved.

If we had painted the wood pieces before installing them and if they had been subject to assessments and movements because of humidity, it would have been possible to see the consequences on the surface of the walls. Therefore we installed the walls, waited for the wood to assess, and only then proceeded with sanding and painting, being able to grant a consistent and regular result.

The dedicated Devoto Design project managers were able to supervise this delicate process on-site. The choice proved right and we obtained the desired level of glossiness and… a piece of art!

Modeling and digital fabrication: a majestic 3D puzzle

Thanks to our great capability of parametric modeling and digital fabrication, the Devoto Design engineering team has created a customized process of shape optimization for CNC manufacturing.

EVERY SINGLE WOOD PIECE has its own identification code showing the number of the wall and the row. 

Banyan Tree Doha Vertigo: some numbers

• 1.143 sqm surface
• 10,5 m maximum height
• 210 cu.m of wood
• 24.856 h installation
• 22.950 wood pieces

Value engineering for complex surfaces: when it comes to double-curving surfaces and high-end engineering projects, Devoto Design can provide consultancy and custom-made solutions to grant the right manufacture of your strongly customized interiors.

To learn more: 

• Website project tab: “Vertigo Restaurant” 
• Website of the well-known French designer Jacques Garcia
• Read the blog article about the Gift Shop del Qatar National Museum.