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Project Name | Acela First Class Lounge, South Station | Boston, MA
Quality Construction at a Challenging Site | Lake's relationship with Amtrak began with some work on the rail company's offices at Boston's South Station. So when Amtrak rolled out its high-speed Acela service, Lake was the ideal company to help them create a first-class lounge for their first-class train service.
The Acela First Class Lounge is located just above the ticketing area in South Station. This posed a number of problems. First, there were no elevators, which meant that Lake's team had to carry all of the materials, furniture, and large dividers and built-ins up the stairs by hand. Second, the lounge sat atop a thick, prestressed concrete platform. The only way to get electrical service to locations in the lounge area was to drill through this floor—carefully, as a misstep could have damaged the rebar inside the concrete and compromised its structural stability.
Guaranteed Customer Satisfaction | For the large dividers and built-ins, the original architect's designs specified maple and cherry laminates, and—to keep the highly modern, clean-lined look—omitted the traditional reveals that carpenters build to hide gaps caused by wood movement and expansion. Despite Lake's warnings, the architect insisted on leaving out the reveals, and Lake complied. But after the pieces had been built, installed, and had adjusted to the building's temperature and humidity, the laminates did, indeed, shift. Lake had to relaminate all of the pieces and, this time, the carpenters were allowed to put in the proper reveals.
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