SITUATION:

Apple Inc. is a multinational technology company that designs, develops, and sells consumer electronics, computer software, and online services. Apple store Kai Chui road is located in the heart of Hongkong which are packed with people.

Apple requested a quick dry, durable and low odour water-based polyurethane sealer to protect the sand stone flooring at it’s retail shops.

SOLUTION:

ARDEX had to complete the work overnight in a very short time period. Therefore, ARDEX R65 P was selected to perform a durable protective layer. It does not affect the appearance of the existing sand stone flooring tile. It penetrates & cures within the pores of the surface providing a seal for extended service life.

Additionaly, the product has:

  • Good water & chemical resistance.
  • Good abrasion resistance.
  • UV Resistant.

PARTICIPANTS:

H.S. Tech.

SITUATION:

Times Square was officially opened in April 1994 and is one of Hong Kong’s largest shopping mall and one of the most popular tourist destination in Hong Kong. Situated at Causeway Bay, the most vibrant mega-mall in town with foot traffic over 150 thousand each day.

In early of May 2013, the Facility Management (FM) Team from the Times Square Limited started to look for a suitable methodology and a reliable product for the flooring renovation work at the Basement one.

SOLUTION:

For the 750m2 flooring renovation work, they planned to divided into 10 phases and all the work should be done overnight after the weekend.

“With ARDURAPID-Effect” , “Walk ability after 3 hours” & “Ready to receive any floor coverings after 1 day” are the features of ARDEX A 35.

Site work was commenced on 26th August 2013 and to be completed by 27th November 2013.

We are not only to provide engineered solutions but follow through until the client’s satisfaction.

PARTICIPANTS:

Owner: Wharf Properties Limited

SITUATION:

The new Panda House was built on the location of the old Seac Pai Van Park Zoo on the island of Coloane. The architecture of the enclosure was designed to mimic the natural roll of the terrain. It is clad with the highly transparent Texlon® ETFE foils to create an enclosed controllable environment for the pandas that did not require the supply of artificial light. The owner and the operator of the Panda House was looking for a reliable solution for a new coating of the Panda House flooring.

SOLUTION:

ARDEX was invited to propose a water-base, easy to apply and almost maintenance-free floor coating for that project.

To ensure a safe environment for the Panda, comply with the FDA 21 CFR standard will be a perfect solution. The application must be:
Ensuring proper ventilation, keep substrate dry at moisture level below 4%.
Apply by brush and roller at specified coverage depending on substrate absorption.

Features of ARDEX R30TE including:-

  • 100% water based, < 1% VOCs. Complies FDA 21 CFR standards for safety food contact
  • Hardness > 3H, may withstand heavy mechanical and chemical loading
  • High gloss, semi-self leveling finish
  • Excellent chemical resistance

PARTICIPANTS:

Owner: Instituto para os Assuntos Civicos e Municipals

SITUATION:

The Giant Panda House is located in Ocean Park. It is home for not only two giant pandas Yingying and Lele, but also many rare and cute animals such as cuddly red pandas and giant salamander.

CHALLENGES:

Repair a 200m2 defective floor in 24 hours.

SOLUTION:

Existing flooring of the Panda House were found debonded, cracks and broken. This is not only a substandard appearance but also a hygiene issue for the Pandas.

A 24-hour-renovation for the floor was planned. Scope of work including hacking off of the existing defective floor around 500m2 in 6 hours. Install a new screeding (ARDEX A35) and a rapid dry self-levelling (ARDEX R 105 E).

Products with Ardurapid™ formulation like ARDEX A35, offer the perfect solution as it provides a rapid dry function and allow the next step of work to go on. Water being mixed in our product will be dried by chemical reaction which is a totally different concept than in the other ordinary products.

ARDEX Engineered Solution presents a new house for our Pandas in only 24 hours!

PARTICIPANTS:

Installer: Kingsley Specialist Engineering Ltd.

SITUATION:

Hangzhou International Expo Center is situated on the banks of the Qiantang River in China. The Hangzhou International Expo Center covers 19.7 hectares, and has a gross floor area of 850,000 sqm (9.15 million ft2). The Hangzhou International Expo Center is the biggest, most influential, most complex and most culturally appealing among the many excellent conferences and exhibitions.

It contains more than 7,500 stores with an international standard and 28 comprehensive conference halls. The total earth excavation is 2.5 million m3. 145,000 tons of steel and 600,000m2 of concrete have been placed.

CHALLENGES:

  • A total construction area of 300,000 m2 is required
  • Stone Installation area reaches 8,000 m2
  • Tight working schedules (5 months)
  • High quality requirements (The building functioned as Main venue of 2016 G20 Summit)

SOLUTION:

About 140,000 square meters of 800mm x 800mm nature stone tiles needed to be installed on the floors of the main hall. Also, nearly 20,000 square meters of 600mm x 600mm porcelain tiles were required on some area of the hall wall.

ARDEX China provided a complete set of technical solutions with quality system products. First, the concrete was primed with ARDEX P20 Powder Primer for both floor and wall installation. Its excellent adhesion would help improving the bonding strength between cement sand and substrates. It also saves time and labor since no waiting time is required.

Second, ARDEX X 26 and X28 were applied to floor and wall tile installation respectively. Excellent tensile adhesion strength and slip resistance of ARDEX X 26 completely prevented the project floor from de-bonding. It was ideal for fixing heavy weight and low water adsorbent tiles on the floor. On the other side, Using ARDEX X 28 as wall tile adhesive would guarantee the quality of the project. ARDEX X 28 would avoid the tile adhesive penetrating into natural stone and then helped minimizing the discoloration. The safety of wall tiles was another big concern. ARDEX X 28 had high performance on rapid hardening with high early bonding strength which would reduce the problem of deformation of tiles caused by voids. Its high flexibility would maintain a high tensile strength when substrates or tiles deform.

In the end, as a fine joint grout, ARDEX FG 4 would provide excellent compressive strength and low shrinkage for tiles. It means ARDEX FG 4 would help minimizing cracking and efflorescence.

SITUATION:

In shenzhen China, new stadiums and entertainment facilites were built in preparation for Universiade 2011. As the event date approached, the construction schedule was behind and the flooring needed to be installed in a short time frame. Once the construction site was ready, ARDEX was asked to provide a fast track solution to the corridor space of the Shen Zhen Stadium.

CHALLENGES:

  • Large size area (5000 m2 / 53,821 ft2)
  • Expedited installation time frame
  • Cold temperatures
  • Heavy and frequent foot traffic

SOLUTION:

In this situation, ARDEX recommended ARDEX K320 High Early Strength Wear-resistant Self-leveling Topping. ARDEX K320 is an extremely durable product and is appropriate for high traffic areas. ARDEX K320 is walkable in just four hours, allowing foot traffic and additional work to take place quickly after the installation.

Following correct substrate preparation protocol, ThyssenKrupp Xervon mechanically prepared the corridor area. By mechanically preparing the substrate, the installers could be sure all contaminates were removed so the ARDEX K320 would properly bond to the substrate. Once the installers created a suitable surface profile, a layer of ARDEX P 51 Primer was applied. ARDEX P 51 is a solvent-free primer used over standard absorbent concrete to seal and improve the bond of ARDEX underlayments and toppings.

Once the ARDEX P 51 was completely dried, the concrete substrate was ready to receive ARDEX K320, as the final wear surface. Once the ARDEX K320 was poured and properly protected, construction trades could continue their work while walking on the new floor. Being such a high profile project, Shen Zhen Stadium demanded high-strength and aesthetically pleasing products to complete the design.

ARDEX provided technical support and quality customer service throughout the installation. Both the owners and ThyssenKrupp Xervon were pleased with the final result.

SITUATION:

Porsche, one of the most famous luxury cars manufacturer, has set up showrooms and workshops all over the world to showcase their world-class craftsmanship in vehicle quality. Besides its showrooms, Porsche also had high visual and functional requirements for their aftersales service centre in Hong Kong, as they wanted to offer premium customer experience in every point of touch, even in the car maintenance and repair process.

CHALLENGES:

Chemical resistance for sure is the key factor for the client to consider.
The Porsche workshops had frequent vehicle in and out, so the chemicals emited from it might cause erosion on the floor tile and the grout.

SOLUTION:

The client wanted the 7000m2 floor tile in the workshops to be extreme appealing and also long-lasting. Ardex EG2 was specified in the project. It was selected to cater two issues – chemical resistance and ease of application. On one hand, the epoxy-based EG2 has excellent chemical resistance which made it very suitable to be used in the workshop. On the other hand, when compared to the ordinary epoxy-based grout, EG2 has high viscosity and is extremely easy for workers to manipulate during application, even for narrow joints.It made the application process much easier. Also for the client, EG2 was an excellent option for them to keep the tile system durable while not sacrificing good tile appearance.

PARTICIPANTS:

V.K. Decoration

SITUATION:

  • This is the busiest IKEA shop in China’s capital city Beijing and even in Asia.
  • This is a steel construction building with total area of 60,000m2 including the car parking.
  • The average traffic flow is about 40,000 people.
  • The flooring was really bad even after repairing for several times.

CHALLENGES:

  • The existing substrate damaged seriously and the steel structure is a little flexible for concrete and other cement products.
  • Very high traffic load and forklift fast turning.
  • Due to noise concern, the application is only permitted at night.
  • Each segment open for repair work should be finished renovating within 7-10 days.

SOLUTION:

As the busiest IKEA shop in CN, it has the highest turnover around the country. Thus, the owner is not willing to shut down the whole shop, and they even don’t want the customers to be annoyed by the installation noise. So in the end, the owner required all the installation should be conducted in the night time, when there is no customer in the shop.

To minimize the affection to the shop, the whole renovation area is divided into several segments and each segment should be renovated within 10 days. The renovation work contains remove of damaged concrete and replace with ARDEX A35 fast curing leveling mortar, or repair of concrete with ARDEX R2PE epoxy coating. After the leveling, ARDEX K31 high strength self leveling underlayment is applied for smoothing the surface before applying the floor adhesive ARDEX AF2510.

SITUATION:

Known for its inspiring, quality and economical home furnishing displays, IKEA experienced failures with their existing floors and asked ARDEX to find a solution. IKEA wanted a product that was durable, abrasion resistant and aesthetically pleasing. They also wanted a floor with superior longevity that was easy to maintain.

CHALLENGES:

  • Cracking in various areas throughout the existing concrete substrate
  • Installation completed while store remained open, so a product with low or no odor was required
  • Area to be repaired in sections 4500 m2 (48,439 ft2)
  • Abrasion resistent floor required
  • Able to withstand heavy rolling loads and foot traffic
  • Over five year floor repair solution expected

SOLUTION:

Offering complete customer service and technical support, ARDEX recommended to the Shanghai Weigu Corrosion Company and IKEA China the ARDEX Self-Leveling Polyurethane System. This flooring system would repair existing cracks in the substrate and meet all the finished flooring requirements IKEA wanted.
To ensure there would be no harsh odors during the installation, Shanghai Weigu Corrosion Company installed a fan system and VOC monitors. This system was used to make sure there was absolutely no odor in the air that would distract the customers while shopping.

After each area was sectioned off, Shanghai Weigu Corrosion Company used a grinding machine to prepare the existing surface to receive the ARDEX Self-Leveling Polyurethane System. The grinding process creates a strong bond to concrete, removing any possible contaminates that could cause failures with the ARDEX system.

To prevent cracks from reflecting or telegraphing through to the new floor system, cracks larger than .8mm (1/32”) were filled with a suitable cementitious patching compound. The ARDEX Polyurethane Self-Leveling System is a three coat system. Once all pre-existing cracks were filled, the ARDEX R7PP Polyurethane Primer was installed to ensure a strong bond between the flooring system and the substrate. Next, the ARDEX R120PP Polyurethane Body Coat was installed followed by the ARDEX R115PP Polyurethane Top Coat.

The ARDEX Polyurethane Self-leveling System was selected because it is easy to install, extremely durable, abrasion resistant and has a long life span. ARDEX Polyurethane Self-Leveling Systems can be installed seamlessly to maintain an aesthetically pleasing floor. The perfect combination for IKEA China.

PARTICIPANTS:

Installers: Shanghai Weigu Corrosion Company

SITUATION:

The Red Market in Macau is the only active wet market in Macau that are listed on the UNESCO World Heritage Convention. The building is built in 1936. As the most trafficked wet market in Macau, inside there are three busy floors of seafood, poultry, meat, vegetables and other sundries. Since it is a heritage protected by the law, routine maintenance works are necessary to keep the building’s integrity.

CHALLENGES:

In the wet market environment, the floor is always subject to heavy traffic and water. So the grouting are prone to trap moisture and dirt. The heavy traffic would also easily cause damage to the grouting, causing it to lose its original functionality.

SOLUTION:

Ardex EG2 grout was specified in the project. The robustness and the water resistance of the ARDEX EG2 are the two key factors for client to select the product. First of all, epoxy-based grouting is extremely water resistance when compared to cement-based grouting. This further minimize the risk of water leakage to the below level. Also, due to its high stain resistance properties, it could virtually eliminates common stains and dirt pick up. EG2 also has excellent abrasion resistance thanks to its high compressive strength, making it perfect for high traffic areas.