Retractable Awning at Radisson Blu Edwardian Hotel

  View photos of Radisson Blu Edwardian Hotel retractable awning project

The Edwardian Group — developers of four- and five-star luxury hotels with historic undertones — required a retractable cover to a rooftop terrace of the 185-room Radisson Blu Edwardian Hotel in the heart of Guildford, a town in Surrey, England. The developer engaged its regular architect to design a rain/shade canopy system for the terrace and had taken it up to the design development stage when the Edwardian Group design director saw the Bal Harbour Shops En-Fold® installation in Florida, prompting a halt of design and a major change in approach.

Guildford, located just 27 mi southwest from London, is the county seat of Surrey where the University of Surrey and the Anglican Guildford Cathedral hold sway. At city’s center, the Radisson Blu hotel is located off High Street, a section of town paved with granite cobblestones and lined by trendy fashion shops such as Hugo Boss and Armani Exchange. A smooth running, clean‐line, retractable canopy fitted into the client’s concept of an infill hotel framed on one side by the restored façade of the historic White Horse Inn and on the other side by new construction. The En-Fold® canopy extends at full length to 37 ft, while leaving just 58‐inch‐wide open spaces on both sides of the fabric canopy. The 42‐ft maximum width of the shade unit was made possible by designing for the lowest allowable wind load at 16psf.

The En-Fold® automated system provides hotel guests with more active use of the rooftop terrace in all weather conditions , thus increasing the management’s ROI on an otherwise underused space.

The En-Fold® for the Radisson Blu Edwardian Hotel in Guildford won a 2015 Industrial Fabrics Association International (IFAI) Award of Excellence in the Commercial Retractable Awnings & Canopies category from the International Achievement Awards.

  Back to retractable awning project gallery