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ROCKFON acoustic stone wool ceiling panels have added a modern look and performance to the historic Minsk National Airport in the Republic of Belarus. The airport connects Western Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States and underwent significant renovations in 2014.
The chief project architect of Minskproyekt Municipal Unitary Engineering Design Enterprise, Oleg V. Sergeyev, selected a combination of ROCKFON Tropic and ROCKFON Arti® stone wool panels to meet the modern aesthetic (see photo), plus the performance requirements for fire safety and acoustics.
Constructed in the 1980s, the Minsk National Airport was built to serve about 5.2 million passengers per year. Initially, upward of 80 percent of airport traffic was carried within the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). In the 1990s, the USSR dissolved and the Republic of Belarus formed. With the changing geopolitical situation, the airport became an increasingly important intersection connecting Western Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). However, airport capacity dramatically dropped around the change of the millennium and the existing building ceased to comply with international standards.
The airport’s 2014 renovation and expansion brought the building up to current local standards, increased capacity for international airline traffic by up to 70 percent, and improved the travel experience for passengers.
"The objectives of a reconstruction and the construction of a new building differ greatly from each other,” Sergeyev said. “In this case, we had to work with the existing size and architecture of the building that was built in the former Soviet Union era. The idea of the project was to create an entirely new interior space with a modern, light, and airy architecture within the boundaries of the existing building.”
Sergeyev said he found inspiration in the spatial principles introduced by the legendary Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier. ”We have dramatically changed the entire interior, streamlined the terminal area, created entirely new paths of passenger traffic, and re-thought the location of check-in counters and waiting rooms to provide passengers with the necessary level of service.”
He added, ”Working on the airport project we also had to meet the international standards for passenger service and noise while creating a comfortable indoor environment. That is why we paid special attention to the selection of building materials. We chose the ROCKFON ceilings because they fully meet our standards for fire safety and acoustics. ROCKFON products are a contemporary and novel solution in our market that we were able to choose based on their value-to-quality ratio.”
Sound-absorbent ROCKFON Tropic ceiling panels offer Noise Reduction Coefficients (NRC) up to 0.90. said ROCKFON's Kirby Williams. “With a high NRC, our ceiling panels help reduce the stressful din of noisy travelers and make it easier to hear important announcements in an international airport.”
Non-combustible, stone wool can withstand temperatures up to 2150 °F (1177 °C) and resists melting, burning, or creating significant smoke, which improves overall fire safety and limits building damage. The panels are dimensionally stable at up to 100 percent relative humidity and factory painted, providing low maintenance and long-term durability.
ROCKFON is a subsidiary of Denmark-based ROCKWOOL International A/S, the world's largest producer of stone wool products. The ROCKWOOL Group has more than 11,000 employees in 35 countries. In North America, the ROCKWOOL Group operates under the name ROXUL. For more information, visit www.rockfon.com.
