ALIA – a business centre with a history

The reconstruction of the building in Kaunas is carried out according to plan.

Looking from aside, it may appear that the process of reconstruction works of ALIA business centre is nothing much different from the construction of other office buildings. However, such a view can be misleading, because reconstruction of a building is a special process.

ALIA business centre uniqueness is not only an exceptional location on the bank of the river Nemunas, but the building under the reconstruction has a unique history. Only a few people know that its unique history started still in 1975, when it was run by “Kauno upių laivininkystės prieplauka” (“Kaunas Rivers Navigation Pier”), and it had a restaurant. From this place passengers were transported to Nida by the famous “Raketa” (“Rocket”) river ships of that time.

As Mindaugas Dagys, Managing Director of UAB ,”Descon” said: “At Kaunas archives, we did not succeed finding the technical documentation of the building constructed at that time, and before the reconstruction works of the building it was important to evaluate the technical condition of the existing structures as well as the condition and length of the hammered poles of the building. For the purpose of identifying the integrity of the poles, an STI (sony integrity testing) was performed. The results of the testing were quite surprising because the length of the hammered poles was 6 metres, which is not typical of the buildings of that period, and for that time it was a truly modern engineering solution.”

In 2003, the old building was reconstructed. Till 2016, it had an entertainment centre and a restaurant, ”Combo”, administrative premises were under rent.

When preparing the project of the ALIA business centre, it was decided to increase the size of the building by 3 additional stores. For this purpose it was critical to evaluate the increased loads to the building and to perform the analysis of the existing structures of the building upon which the constructive part and the procedure of related works directly depended.

“Using special equipment, the pressure test of the building fundaments was performed monitoring the down-settlement of the pole (by using a 50 tonne pressure). As no additional reinforcement of the fundaments were needed, a decision to reinforce the holding columns and to minimize the weight of the building construction for elimination of any excess loads was made”, said Mindaugas Dagys.

According to the project construction engineers, the object of ALIA is special in that they had to look for atypical engineering solutions to implement the ideas of the architects to be able to retain the history of the building in the ALIA interior – unveiling the old and building new constructions.

Various types of constructions are used in the structural part: steel, reinforced concrete, and wood. It is completely unconventional for modern office constructions and makes this building even more exclusive. According to modern fire safety, evacuation requirements, the building has new openings, and new staircases. We cleaned the old floor construction, prepared the flooring that hides all communications: water, electricity.

ALIA business centre is unique not only for its exceptional location, but also for the history of the building which started in the 1980s. Currently, in the halfway of the reconstruction works, a new, modern page in the history of the office building is being opened.

 

Follow the business center construction process here.

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