cologne - bonn airport

Background

Cologne/Bonn Airport is one of the largest commercial airports in Germany. Every year more than 10 million passengers fly from the airport to over 130 destinations worldwide. It is the sixth largest airport in Germany and one of the country's few 24-hour airports. The airport includes both passenger and cargo flights and is a major cargo hub.

Scope

In the redesign for Terminal 1, customized porcelain was used for the Galaxy floor tiling. The tile grid of 62.5 cm was matched exactly to the centre-to-centre distances of the pillars and columns in the terminal. The aim was to avoid having to trim anything as that would have potentially spoiled the overall aesthetic look. The requirements for Terminal C were even more specialized. Here, Galaxy was produced as equilateral triangles, with each side measuring 67.7 cm, thus exactly matching the roof construction, which was also based on triangles. More than 25,000 square meters of RAK Ceramics floor tiles were laid in the two terminals. The 1.4 cm thick tile boasts an extremely high stability and pressure resistance to meet the tough specification. The tile is anti-slip and highly durable to cope with the thousands of passengers walking around each day. The surface of the grey and beige tiles in matt finish with a fine-grained look met the needs of the architect who was keen to achieve a "concrete look".

Results

Openness, functionality, safety and acceptability in architectural terms, sets high standards in terms of design in modern airport terminals. Galaxy, RAK Ceramics specially developed airport product was specifically tailored to the requirements of Terminal 1 and Terminal C at Cologne/Bonn Airport.