West Kowloon Terminus, Hong Kong

Hong Kong’s new West Kowloon terminus utilised a large quantity of Flowcrete Asia’s specialist screed technology to create a floor area that would be able to withstand foot traffic from a vast number of daily users.

Located in the middle of Kowloon, this station is the world’s largest underground rail terminus and effectively acts as the gateway between China and Hong Kong. 127 pairs of high speed trains will be arriving and departing from the station every day, mostly from Guangzhou and Shenzhen but also taking people to and from Beijing, Shanghai, Kunming, Changsha, Fuzhou, Xiamen and Chaoshan. In total, over 100,000 passengers will be moving through the station on a daily basis.

The project’s designers knew that the scale of the project and its intensive use would put a lot of stress into the building– with the floor being a particular concern due to the significant number of people that would be constantly moving across the finish.

To achieve a surface able to cope with this demand, 100,000 m² of the semi-dry cementitious screed system Isocrete K-Screed was applied as a surface underlayment throughout the main terminal facility, including in the customs, clearance and departure halls as well in baggage handling areas, back-of-house maintenance facilities and the overhead rooftop garden. The screed’s thickness ranged from 40-60mm depending on where in the site it was applied. Tiles were then used to finish the floor build-up.

Isocrete K-Screed was chosen as it incorporates proprietary additives that give it unique early drying and high strength properties. These advantages meant that the station’s developers would be provided with an exceptionally robust screed layer that could be very quickly installed.