Gruzen Samton • IBI Group was retained to renovate the old Commodore Hotel in Midtown, Manhattan, reinventing it as the new Grand Hyatt. The challenge of the renovation was to design a dramatic, contemporary hotel without the customary freedom of starting from the ground up: the existing structure was to remain in place, and the new hotel superimposed upon the old one. As well as being a major interior and exterior renovation and reconstruction, the project included numerous studies of the str...