MGM CityCenter: Aria Resort & Casino
Las Vegas, NV

With a total cost of approximately $11 billion, CityCenter is the largest privately financed development in North America. The massive 76-acre development is already reshaping the entertainment capital of the world with its progressive urban planning and contemporary design, creating a new vertical presence in the Vegas skyline. The architecture represents the collective effort of eight world-renowned architectural firms.

The Aria Resort & Casino is Phase 1 (or Block A) of the three-phase project. Enclos has collaborated with Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects — a master designer of the building facade — on many prior works. Here Enclos was selected to provide complete design/build services for over 1.2 million square feet of custom unitized curtainwall consisting of multiple segmented elevations and using articulated walls to achieve the structure’s large radii. Above the 24th floor the building splits into two separate towers. The towers curve in opposite directions and house over 4,000 hotel rooms and luxury condominiums in addition to a 165,000 square foot casino, three-story, 300,000 square foot convention center, 70,000 square foot spa, 2,000 seat theater and three-story lobby.

The architects designed the interiors with floor-to-ceiling glass, providing spectacular views of both the Las Vegas Strip and the surrounding desert and mountain terrain. Complicating the desire for an all-glass facade was a green agenda for the building program; the developers plan to pursue LEED certification for the entire development with many green features incorporated into the design. Performance and aesthetic considerations both would thus have to be accommodated in the facade design. In addition, each room within Aria incorporates at least one custom corner window unit. The units are designed with no mullion at the corner to provide a unique aesthetic and unobstructed view. To accommodate performance requirements demanding solar control, all exterior wall systems incorporate an integrated sun shade system with projecting fins ranging from two feet to eight inches deep as a function of location. The unitized curtainwall system was designed to facilitate a demanding installation schedule. Large vertical units span two floors, and an innovative anchoring system expedited setting the units. Units in the upper level penthouses span a remarkable 32 feet in height and present a stunning enclosure. The refined, highly crafted aesthetic of the inner face of the glass and aluminum curtainwall units is most appropriate to the interior design of these luxury habitats.

The scale of the project, a blistering construction schedule, and site logistics complicated by the fact that Aria stands at the very heart of the building site surrounded by numerous other construction activities, presented a monumental challenge to the Enclos site operations team. The firm was selected on the basis of its past performance on large-scale projects with daunting logistical challenges, and no one knows better how to deal with such demands. Enclos has clad some of the largest skyscrapers in the densest urban environments on the planet. To accommodate both the fabrication and delivery logistics of this project, Enclos implemented a 100,000 square foot assembly plant just across the Utah border, an area with a strong labor market and easy freeway access to the building site. Fabricated materials were provided to this assembly facility by multiple suppliers, providing a huge production capacity to meet the needs of the Aria project.