2020 | Professional

MUSE Design Awards Design of the Year Winner

Seminole Hard Rock Hollywood Hotel - Guitar Tower

Entrant Company

Klai Juba Wald Architecture + Interiors

Category

Architectural Design - Hospitality

Client's Name

Seminole Gaming for The Seminole Indian Tribe of Florida & Hard Rock International

Country / Region

United States

This 596,044 square foot tower is part of a $1.5-billion, 3.2-million square foot master plan, renovation and expansion. The expansion brings the property’s room inventory to 1,271 keys with the hotel’s existing 465 guestrooms and suites. Showcasing 638 new luxury guest rooms and suites, the iconic Guitar Tower’s design resembles back-to-back guitars in an engineering masterpiece that rises 450 feet into the sky.



The seven-story Oasis Tower includes 168 guest rooms with exclusive swim-up suites overlooking the magnificent 18 acres of waterfalls, lazy river and multiple pools comprising a lagoon experience for swimming, kayaking, paddle boarding and more. The integrated resort also includes a 42,000 square foot Rock Spa & Salon, an indoor retail promenade, a private day club and nightclub, premier meeting and convention space, an elevated poker room and much more.



The realization of the Guitar Tower took skilled personnel and innovative ideas to turn the unique design into reality in less than three years. Exterior columns at the curves are sloped by as much as 40 degrees, requiring them to remain fully supported during construction. A complex system of cantilevered bracing spanned multiple floors, which themselves required different slab thicknesses ranging from 9 to 12 inches.



With the hotel’s height limited by its close proximity to an airport, the project team saved inches by using post-tension slabs with sufficient reinforcement. Programmable LEDs are integrated into the tower’s curtainwall to enliven the guitar form, light cannons complete the guitar’s 355 foot long ‘strings & neck’ into the sky, all choreographed to classic rock music celebrating this worldwide brand in a nightly show.



Despite all the complexities, the design and construction planning efforts aimed at maximizing speed and efficiency during field installation. Crews were able to complete one floor per week, with some taking as few as five days to complete.



Although the project is highly detailed, the tower was designed to allow for new, innovative and improved ideas to be implemented throughout construction. The Guitar Tower opened late October, and the entire master plan is scheduled to complete in advance of the 2020 Super Bowl in Miami.

Credits

Klai Juba Wald Architecture + Interiors
John R Klai II
Klai Juba Wald Architecture + Interiors
John Wald
Klai Juba Wald Architecture + Interiors
Dan Juba
Klai Juba Wald Architecture + Interiors
Brian Fink
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