SUPAWOOD have been used as a prominent feature in the public areas of the multimillion dollar refurbishment of Jasper Hotel, one of Melbourne’s elite inner city boutique hotels.

Designers K2LD Architects were given a timeline of just 16 weeks to complete the refurbishment in a live environment where access would be shared with staff and guests. The site also posed logistical and structural challengers, which meant materials chosen needed careful consideration.

A chunky beam look was desired as a feature for the ceilings in the public areas but the use of heavy timber would have been impossible to achieve due to the constraints of the site. The answer was found in Supaslat MAXI BEAM.

The materials used in the hotel’s refurbishment have been inspired by the name of the hotel, Jasper, a gemstone common to the Australian outback. Complementing this concept, a rich textured ceiling effect has been created throughout the common areas at street level by using different beam depths in a Stripped Mahogany laminated wood grain finish.

Supaslat MAXI BEAM is so light in weight it allowed the designers to achieve the look of heavy timber beams without major strengthening of the existing ceiling structure. Their light weight also overcame getting the beams into the site. As the beams were delivered prefinished and cut sizes, limited cutting and joining onsite was required keeping noise and dust levels to a bare minimum.

In this project the unique properties and flexibility of Supaslat MAXI BEAM enabled the designers to achieve the look they wanted, while working in a restricted live environment to a tight deadline and without compromising the end effect they envisaged.