Millions of people already visited the Reichstag. The wall to wall carpets made from AQUAFIL BCF yarns still looks like new. The AQUAFIL BCF yarn is spun from polymer produced by LDR® technology.
The construction industry sees the Reichstag building as the German building project par excellence. This is particularly true for ANKER and Thomsit, the two companies delivered and installed the floor coverings, and for the fiber manufacturers AQUAFIL and Wools of New Zealand. The reconstruction project is seen by the four cooperation partners as an ideal opportunity to demonstrate the efficiency of their products and service concepts.
Renovation started in late 1994, and the Bundesbaugesellschaft Berlin, was due to present the building to the German Parliament at 19th April 1999. From the very beginning it has been a period of extremely ambitious performance under high pressure for all the companies involved.
After a two-year period of studying samples, with a variety of printed designs under discussion, the decision was made for both, woven and tufted carpets from the carpet manufacturer ANKER of Dueren. The carpets (wall to wall) and tiles are in a neutral gray, covering approx. 13,000 square meters.
The different carpets are made partly from quality New Zealand wool and partly from Nylon 6 (Polyamide 6). The Nylon 6 carpets are made from pigment-dyed (dope dyed) yarn ALTO CHROMA from AQUAFIL. This makes them extremely resistant against wearing and bleaching, as well as perfectly protected against UV rays, aging and dirt.
Moreover, despite their different basic materials, all types of carpets had to match accurately in regard to color and design, but also to the interiors and – in some parts of the building – to the stone floor pattern.
In the plenary hall of the Bundestag building as well as in other carpeted areas, ANKER relied on the proven ALTO CHROMA BCF yarn from the Italian synthetic fiber manufacturer AQUAFIL. The Nylon 6 polymer for this BCF yarn is made according to the environmental friendly AQUAFIL LDR® Polymerization Process (registered trade mark of AQUAFIL Engineering GmbH , Berlin). It was a deliberate decision, made with good reason, in particular, it is the spun (dope) dyed fiber which gives technical benefits. There are no color inconsistencies due to manufacturing differences or different lots. The yarn is produced in a sophisticated system, and the desired shade can be reproduced any time within narrow tolerances due to the precisely operating master batch dosing systems AQU-RACY® (registered trade mark of AQUAFIL Engineering GmbH , Berlin). The spun dyed yarns, in the shade made exclusively for ANKER, were delivered on time, and the tight schedule was met.
In the plenary hall, the visitor galleries and the press boxes, air conditioning takes place through the carpet. Here, ANKER specially developed an air-conditioning carpet, made from ALTO CHROMA tufted pile material, using a special coating that allows full surface ventilation. The floor also meets the highest standards of acoustics, particularly in its ability to absorb sound.
The company was faced with the challenge of laying about 1,800 square meters of carpet, partly on perforated steel plates (air conditioning floor) and partly on AFE/ZE cavity floor.
The floor of meeting rooms of the parliamentary parties have been covered partly with perforated and partly with non-perforated tiles, having an environmental friendly heavy-duty coating, also tufted from ALTO CHROMA from
AQUAFIL.
This makes it possible to regulate the air quantity for each room separately.
The office rooms are fitted with woven wool carpets, made according to the strict specifications of Wools of New Zealand. For technical areas again ALTO CHROMA from AQUAFIL was used for woven carpets.
The company responsible for the carpet installation, was faced with a totally new challenge: how to glue carpets onto metal plates that have a layer of oil
for rust protection and which later shall allow the air to pass? To help their partners with this and other problems, Henkel Thomsit’s Technical Sales Department set up a sophisticated site service system to make not only numerous test in a specially built lightweight hall, but also basic tests and to give
detailed product assistance.
Working closely with Henkel-Ecolab (Duesseldorf) and Thomsit’s application engineers, the installation problems were solved.
Despite difficult conditions and a large number of laying problems of which many had never thought before, the crew of floor layers succeeded in producing superb workmanship in the new German Parliament. They benefited from the immense amount of help provided by ANKER, AQUAFIL, Henkel Thomsit
and Wools of New Zealand whenever it was needed.
