New York (December 2, 2010) – During a breakfast ceremony at the International Hotel Motel + Restaurant Show, Gerner Kronick + Valcarcel, Architects, PC won the prestigious Gold Key Award for Excellence in Hospitality Design for best guest room, Park Hyatt Macka Palas, Istanbul, Turkey. Randy Gerner, AIA, Principal and Bryan Bennett, Director of Design, accepted the award on behalf of the firm. The Park Hyatt Macka Palas was also a finalist for Best Hotel Design – Urban. Honorees were selected by a panel of notable industry experts from a field of more than 180 projects representing 19 countries.
Park Hyatt Maçka Palace marries historic and exotic elements with modern and luxurious, creating a unique space perpetuating Istanbul’s current culture. In addition to the façade restoration, GKV Architects designed 85 spectacular guestrooms, five penthouse suites, an ultra-hip rooftop bar, and a first-of-its-kind for Istanbul – a steakhouse, for the spare-no-expense luxury boutique hotel.
Each opulent guest room is equipped with numerous amenities including a chilled cosmetic cabinet, a state-of-the-art fully-stocked wet bar and fridge, i-Pod plug-ins and approximately two dozen light setting choices to adjust the mood and character of the room reflecting the guests’ current mood or character. Paying homage to the Turkish rituals and traditions of bathing, a separate room reserved for toilet and bidet as well as additional specially designed drinking and washing vessels were incorporated into the design. GKV Architects created a distinctive bathing experience called wet rooms, which feature five different bathing events: a splash tub, a rain shower, a Turkish bath, a steam shower and a light therapy shower.
“The Park Hyatt Macka Palas effortlessly combines historic and modern design to create a unique guest experience. We are thrilled that our work has been recognized by our peers and proudly accept the Gold Key Award for Best Guest Room Design,” explains Randy Gerner, AIA, Principal of GKV Architects.
About GKV Architects
Gerner Kronick + Valcarcel, Architects, PC is an award-winning New York City-based architecture and design firm with a focus on quality base building and interior design solutions. Founded in 1995 by Randolph H. Gerner, AIA, Richard N. Kronick, AIA and Miguel Valcarcel, AIA, the firm, with a professional staff of 40, has a broad portfolio of work in the residential, corporate, commercial, restoration, hospitality and institutional fields totaling more than 30 million square feet.
Related Stories
| Oct 5, 2012
2012 Reconstruction Award Bronze Winner: DPR Construction, Phoenix Regional Office, Phoenix, Ariz.
Working with A/E firm SmithGroupJJR, DPR converted a vacant 16,533-sf one-time “adult-themed boutique” in the city’s reemerging Discovery Triangle into a LEED-NC Platinum office, one that is on target to be the first net-zero commercial office building in Arizona.
| Oct 5, 2012
2012 Reconstruction Award Bronze Winner: Pomeroy Senior Apartments, Chicago, Ill.
The entire interior of the building was renovated, from the first floor lobby and common areas, to the rooftop spaces. The number of living units was reduced from 120 to 104 to allow for more space per unit and comply with current accessibility requirements.
| Oct 5, 2012
2012 Reconstruction Award Bronze Winner: Walsh Group Training and Conference Center, Chicago, Ill.
With its Building Team partners—architect Solomon Cordwell Buenz, structural engineer CS Associates, and M/E engineer McGuire Engineers—Walsh Construction, acting as its own contractor, turned the former automobile showroom and paperboard package facility into a 93,000-sf showcase of sustainable design and construction.
| Oct 5, 2012
2012 Reconstruction Award Silver Winner: 220 Water Street, Brooklyn, N.Y.
The recent rehabilitation of 220 Water Street transforms it from a vacant manufacturing facility to a 134-unit luxury apartment building in Brooklyn’s DUMBO neighborhood.
| Oct 5, 2012
2012 Reconstruction Award Silver Winner: Residences at the John Marshall, Richmond, Va.
In April 2010, the Building Team of Rule Joy Trammell + Rubio, Stanley D. Lindsey & Associates, Leppard Johnson & Associates, and Choate Interior Construction restored the 16-story, 310,537-sf building into the Residences at the John Marshall, a new mixed-use facility offering apartments, street-level retail, a catering kitchen, and two restored ballrooms.
| Oct 4, 2012
2012 Reconstruction Awards Silver Winner: Allen Theatre at PlayhouseSquare, Cleveland, Ohio
The $30 million project resulted in three new theatres in the existing 81,500-sf space and a 44,000-sf contiguous addition: the Allen Theatre, the Second Stage, and the Helen Rosenfeld Lewis Bialosky Lab Theatre.
| Oct 4, 2012
2012 Reconstruction Awards Gold Winner: Wake Forest Biotech Place, Winston-Salem, N.C.
Reconstruction centered on Building 91.1, a historic (1937) five-story former machine shop, with its distinctive façade of glass blocks, many of which were damaged. The Building Team repointed, relocated, or replaced 65,869 glass blocks.
| Oct 4, 2012
2012 Reconstruction Awards Gold Winner: Rice Fergus Miller Office & Studio, Bremerton, Wash.
Rice Fergus Miller bought a vacant and derelict Sears Auto and converted the 30,000 gsf space into the most energy-efficient commercial building in the Pacific Northwest on a construction budget of around $100/sf.
| Oct 4, 2012
2012 Reconstruction Award Platinum Winner: Building 1500, Naval Air Station Pensacola Pensacola, Fla.
The Building Team, led by local firms Caldwell Associates Architects and Greenhut Construction, had to tackle several difficult problems to make the historic building meet current Defense Department standards having to do with anti-terrorism, force protection, blast-proofing, and progressive collapse.
| Oct 4, 2012
2012 Reconstruction Awards Platinum Winner: City Hall, New York, N.Y.
New York's City Hall last received a major renovation nearly a century ago. Four years ago, a Building Team led by construction manager Hill International took on the monumental task of restoring City Hall for another couple of hundred years of active service.
