The Havenhuis Port House is the headquarters of Antwerp Port Authority and was designed by Zaha Hadid and has been crowned as the overall winner of the ABB Leaf Awards in the refurbishment category for 2018.
The building, designed to represent the ports shipping and diamond heritage sits above the old listed Port Authority building.
Sharpfibre were invited to advise and then install for the best way to achieve the 120 minute fire rating to the Euro standard (more rigorous than British Standards) for a system that could be applied off-site at Victor Buycks steel fabrication facility in Ghent. Application was to be to pre-constructed large segments of half a floor plate each. These were then to be shipped by barge to Antwerp before being lifted into place in a number of massive lifts. Once in place touch up and repairs were carried out to the fire protection. The fire protection system used was Monokote MK-6/HY by Grace. Used for its lightness, which was a significant factor in the choice of material.
This was one of the most challenging projects Sharpfibre have carried out in our 31 years in the business.
