ESHRA

HOTEL AND CATERING SCHOOL OF ALGIERS. ESHRA

The Société d’Investissements Hôtelléires (SIH) is an Algerian public company appointed by the Algerian government to develop hotel infrastructures throughout the country. For this reason, and with the fundamental objective of modernizing and raising to excellence the quality of hotel services in the country, the SIH decided to carry out this important university training project, with one main objective: to develop the best hotel management and catering school in North Africa. To this end, the SIH sought as a partner the most prestigious school in this field in the world, l’Ecole Hôtelière de Lausanne (EHL), which acted as an active manager in this project, supervising it from its inception to its full completion, and today is also its partner in the management of the school itself.

ESHRA offers an academic degree in hotel management, accredited by the Algerian government and approved by l’Ecole Hôtelière de Lausanne, with whom it is working in partnership on this important and strategic project.

The project was awarded following an international call for tenders issued by SIH for the construction of “A Hotel and Catering Training Center in Algiers”; the call for tenders was launched in November 2011 and awarded in January 2012. The architectural project was developed in its entirety by SHARE between January and August 2012, with the construction works starting in July 2012, and completed by the end of summer 2014, with academic activities starting in November 2014.

Lausanne Hospitality Consulting, S.A. (LHC), a subsidiary of the École Hôtelière de Lausanne (EHL), carried out a complete consultancy work for the development and organization of the planned center at the request of the Société d’Investissement Hôtelière (SIH). This consultancy work resulted in a document establishing the fundamental criteria for the operation and organization of the future university center, and in which the doctrine and the open, elitist and cosmopolitan teaching system of the École Hôtelière de Lausanne (EHL) itself were reflected. All these issues were taken into account from the beginning of our work, and until the end of the project, which was carried out in close collaboration with the academic heads of this prestigious institution.

The project envisages the development of an academic complex with an initial capacity for 800 students that can be expanded, with residences for 400 students, plus teachers, managers and employees (up to a capacity of 500 accommodations), spaces for events, service areas, as well as extensive sports areas, gardens, leisure areas and a specific accommodation area for visitors. The program is developed in more than 60,000 m2 of construction, set on a plot of more than 17 hectares.

The projected buildings have clear, emphatic and proportionate forms, in accordance with the eminently functional character of the center, which houses a complex and intense program of functions and relationships, following the wishes and criteria of its promoters. The building complex is materialized on the basis of natural materials with their characteristics and qualities, textures and colors, manifested in all their essence: stone, glass, concrete and plaster are used as basic finishes in accordance with the formal purity and sober character of the projected buildings.

And all this under a careful integration of elements, forms and functions, where light is treated with sensitivity and extreme attention, as a generator of spaces and environments, as a local wealth manifested in a building overturned to the sea, whose views are offered in a clear and intentional way.

This project received the award for the best international work in Africa granted by the Association of Marble Entrepreneurs of Andalusia in 2015 corresponding to the XXIX Edition of this prestigious architectural award.