As the largest improvement project in its 80-plus
year history, the San Diego International Airport's
ambitious Green Build program will help meet the
airport's current and future demand for travel,
while improving customer service and serving as
an economic stimulus for the San Diego region.
The $1 billion project, designed by architectural
firm HNTB and URS, will add 460,000 square
feet, 10 new gates to reduce terminal congestion
and provide more comfortable passenger waiting
areas, enhanced concession and shopping areas,
and a new dual-level roadway that separates
arriving and departing passengers. The project,
which incorporates sustainable design principles,
is targeted to receive a Leadership in Energy and
Environmental Design (LEED) Silver Certification
from the United States Green Building Council, and
is moving toward a summer 2013 completion date.
Marrying the existing and new structures so that
they blended seamlessly was no easy feat. The
existing portions of the terminal utilized hardworking
terrazzo flooring and luxurious Jerusalem
Gold travertine on the walls, which radiates the
sunny San Diego feeling at all times of the day.
Designers specified similar materials in the Terminal
2 expansion, adding 40,000 square feet of
Jerusalem gold limestone veneer to the walls of the
new concourse.
"The veneer goes 15 feet high in most places and
terminates into 3 cm thick black granite base," said
Tom Page, Vice President of Inland Pacific Tile, Inc.
in San Bernardino, Calif.
Although the bids for the work were competitive, Inland Pacific Tile, Inc. was awarded the project
thanks to the installation team's expertise and the
promise that they could accomplish a certain number
of feet per day to keep to the project moving. The
secret to their fast installation times: LATAPOXY® 310
Stone Adhesive.
LATAPOXY 310 Stone Adhesive is a two-component,
high strength epoxy adhesive, formulated for spot
bonding of tile and stone installations on vertical
surfaces. LATAPOXY 310 Stone Adhesive maintains
its non-sag consistency at high temperatures up to
95°F (35°C) and offers a fast, permanent bond with
a 45-minute to one-hour set time. It's also easy to
use thanks to its 1:1 mixing ratio by volume.
Stone veneers require well thought-out, highly
technical installation planning in order to ensure
proper adhesion and durability, and projects like
the San Diego Airport, which feature 16x16-inch
and 16x22-inch limestone tiles, require even more
attention. A totally flat substrate is an important
consideration for direct-adhered veneers which
require full contact adhesive coverage, and one of
the challenges the installers faced was that they were
dealing with walls that in many places had highly
uneven surfaces due to framing, and attachments
behind the backerboard which cause bowing or out
of plumb substrates.
"We used LATAPOXY 310 adhesive, which gave us
several advantages," Page said. "When you are going
over Backerboard walls that will not be perfectly
flat or plumb as well as trying to keep the stone
flush where it terminates at doors or accessories, it
helps to straighten and level out that problem." In areas where we needed to build out the stone the
LATAPOXY® 310 Stone Adhesive did this with ease
and in one step.
In addition to leveling out the stone over uneven
walls, LATAPOXY 310 Stone Adhesive also increased
productivity and helped to lower labor costs and time
frame. The adhesive allows a two-man crew to install
more than 200 square feet accurately per day along
with the help of using the LATAPOXY 310 Cordless
Mixer. The LATAPOXY 310 Cordless Mixer is an
exclusive dual component cordless mixer that quickly
and easily dispenses LATAPOXY 310 Stone Adhesive
onto ceramic tile, porcelain and stone veneers.
"A full spread epoxy was going to slow them down
even more than if they were using regular thinset
adhesive," said Gerard Meyers, distributor sales
representative for LATICRETE. "LATAPOXY 310 is
much faster than thinset. Even though the product
cost more than traditional thinsets, it saved them on
time and labor and allowed them to get double the
production in one day."
The adhesive is also much easier to work with than
traditional methods that require pins, and also allows
for quick and easy plumb adjustments when the stone
thicknesses are uneven.
"It worked pretty well," said Gary Rodocker,
Superintendent for Inland Pacific Tile, Inc. who
oversaw the job. "310 is a good design for the fact
that you can build it out easier than you could the
typical way, which was important for us because
this let us have full control on adjusting the stones
(i.e. pressing in / pulling out, etc...) during the
installation.
Inland Pacific's team also installed porcelain tile in
the airport's new public bathrooms. They specified
4-XLT mortar for walls and floors. The mortar's Water Dispersion Technology lets the installer select the
desired consistency for their specific application.
It also offers tremendous utility for non-sag wall
installations, medium bed build up to 3/4-inch and
thin-set application of floors. The team then finished
the installations with SPECTRALOCK® PRO Premium
Grout^ for its high performance, color uniformity,
durability and stain resistance.
With 18 million passengers passing through San
Diego International Airport each year, it is projected
that the airport's passengers will increase from
27 to 33 million by 2030. According to airport
officials, The Green Build project will help meet
the airport's current and future demand for travel,
while improving customer service and serving as an
economic stimulus for the San Diego region. It will
create 1,000 jobs at peak construction. Travelers
can expect to take advantage of the finished
facilities in 2013. These travelers will be spending
time in a state-of-the-art facility that includes stone
material installed with the most up-to-date, highest
performance, safest and greenest installation
products to be found.
Of course, these products are from the LATICRETE
SYSTEM.