In December 2010, Hotel Hyatt Regency Düsseldorf opened its doors in the heart of the trendy business district Düsseldorfer MedienHafen. The design-oriented luxury hotel is situated in a privileged position at the tip of a land tongue, overlooking harbour and city from one of the two parallel 53 metres high tower buildings. The 19-storey hotel with its 303 rooms and suites, offers also space for restaurants, bars, a ballroom, large meeting and congress rooms, as well as health club and spa areas. The newly built hotel is the first hotel that was certified by the German Sustainable Building Council (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Nachhaltiges Bauen e.V., DGNB) and, as they say, it was awarded an “excellent” silver medal.

The ambition for a sustainable and forward-looking handling of resources and an exclusive design of surfaces, not only in the public areas but also in the guest rooms, should be reflected by the use of high-quality waterproofing and laying materials. That was why the executing company Gerloff & Söhne GmbH & Co KG brought on board products and expertise of PCI Augsburg GmbH. PCI specialist Tobias Eckhard and the application technology office North Rhine-Westphalia supported this project by selecting the proper waterproofing and laying materials and gave advice on how to structure very demanding details.

The use of natural stones, floral motifs on tiles, glass and mirror surfaces, as well as the play of water and reflecting surfaces are the recurrent themes throughout all of the rooms of this luxury hotel. The highlight of the nearly 500 sq. m Rive Spa is the extraordinarily large Jacuzzi with its golden bottom. That was built of 10 x 10 cm aluminium tiles with a surface coating provided by the company Alulife. The other surface areas of the pool and the seating benches were covered with "Clarks Quarzit" natural stones and the flooring was covered with the cream-coloured Hyatt Grey stoneware of ICA Groep, The Netherlands. When carrying out this work, the expert’s advices of PCI application technology were followed.

The cleaned surfaces were then sealed with two layers of the mineral-based waterproofing slurry PCI Seccoral 2K and for exterior components the special waterproofing tapes PCI Pecitape Objekt were used. PVC mounting parts were first slightly sanded, then levelled out with PCI Collastic and, finally, worked into the waterproofing layer with waterproofing collars. The aluminium tiles for the “golden bottom” were laid in a thin-bed of the reaction resin mortar PCI-Durapox NT plus. For laying the natural stones "Clarks Quarzit", a 3 cm mortar bed of PCI Carrament with a PCI Lastoflex admixture was used. PCI Carrament is a medium-bed and preparation mortar that has been especially developed for natural stone coverings. Both, natural stone coverings and aluminium tile floorings were grouted with the reaction resin mortar PCI Durapox NT plus.

The guest bathrooms with their floor to ceiling glazed walls offer a stunning view on the harbour and the city. These large and spaciously designed rooms repeat colours, surfaces and design elements of the public rooms. Furthermore, they are equipped with a rain shower and a separate bath tub. Real eye catchers are the golden brown wall tiles above of the bath tub. Each tile is unique and their surfaces are engraved with large stylized floral motifs by the company Gerloff & Söhne. All wall tiles of the 303 guest rooms plus suites were laid with PCI FT -Klebemörtel, whereas the floor tiles were laid by using the flexibilised tile adhesive PCI FT Extra and were grouted with PCI Flexfug. Once again, PCI Seccoral 1K or 2K was used here for waterproofing and exterior components were waterproofed with embedded waterproofing tapes PCI Pecitape Objekt. Following the advice of the PCI experts, the cold and hot water pipes running above of the waterproofing of shower and bath tubs were covered in a second working step, with pre-cut parts of PCI Pecilastic W, bonded with PCI Seccoral and, finally, embedded into the existing waterproofing layer.

From April to December 2010, the company Gerloff & Söhne carried out the tiling and natural stone works including waterproofing and laying of floor and wall tiles in the hotel kitchen with 30 to 35 employees. The project management was in close contact with PCI specialist Tobias Eckhardt and the application technology office North Rhine-Westphalia. So all the challenges presented by such an extraordinary building project like the Hyatt Regency Düsseldorf could be met, also owing to the technical expertise and on-site support of PCI Augsburg GmbH specialists, and, finally, the work could be finished in due time.