Underground Rail Station Flooring

Flowcrete Asia has recently supplied high performance flooring solutions to two of the region’s most prestigious and demanding underground rail networks.

This has included at Hong Kong’s new West Kowloon terminus, which has become the world’s largest underground rail terminus and acts as the gateway between China and Hong Kong.

The pressure and demands that would be placed on this facility’s floor is illustrated by the astounding amount of activity that the station will see – with 127 pairs of high speed trains arriving and departing every day and over 100,000 passengers expected to use 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’s components. The floor was a particular concern due to the very large number of people that would be constantly moving across the finish.

To achieve a surface able to cope with these challenges, 100,000 m² of the semi-dry cementitious screed system Isocrete K-Screed was applied as a surface underlayment in the main terminal facility. Flowcrete Asia’s specialist screed system was installed in the customs, clearance and departure halls as well in the 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 being applied and large metre-square tiles were 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 laid down onsite.

In Singapore, Flowcrete Asia has been supplying its highly decorative seamless resin terrazzo flooring solution Mondéco Crystal for a new underpass that The Singapore University of Technology & Design (SUTD) has built to connect it to the Upper Changi MRT Station.

Much like the West Kowloon terminus, the project’s developers wanted the facility to surround commuters and tourists in a luxurious and comfortable environment and knew that it would have to maintain its aesthetic and functional properties in the face of heavy foot traffic, scuffs, scrapes, stains and impacts.

700 m² of Mondéco Crystal was applied throughout the underpass in a fresh aquamarine shade, with a contrasting grey tone used to create a border along the edge of the floor that organically twists and turns with the building’s walls. Curved divider strips that mirrored the architecture were used to separate the two distinct colours.

Bespoke patterns and intricate outlines can be made using Mondéco thanks to its innovative, paint-by-numbers application technique. Along with its design versatility, the seamless, impervious and abrasion resistant nature of Mondéco means that it can be kept looking fresh and unblemished.

This flooring specification was also used for the site’s retail spaces so that they shared the same high-end finish as the main concourse area. In addition, Mondéco Crystal was applied on the stairs leading to the underpass. Applying a resin terrazzo material on a staircase requires very skilled application capabilities and extensive product knowledge to achieve.

Durability and longevity was a critical aspect for both of these flooring projects, as the two stations are vital component in each city’s transport infrastructure. Floor failures and unplanned refurbishments in these sites could wreak havoc with thousands of people’s daily commutes and travel plans.

Flowcrete Asia’s versatile range of flooring systems as well as its experience working alongside large-scale, complex infrastructure projects meant that it was the ideal flooring partner for the new West Kowloon terminus as well as SUTD’s MRT station underpass.