Timber has played a central role in the redevelopment of Terminal 2E at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris.
Pier 2E, the jetty attached to the terminal, has been refurbished in ash-veneered birch plywood cladding and glulam supported by a steel frame and covered in a glass shell, as part of a reconstruction following the collapse of the original concrete structure in 2004.
The 660x30x20m jetty required 152 glulam beams and 18,000m² of cladding, which took nearly seven months to install. Each beam was delivered to site in six sections of up to 8.5m in length.
Finnforest Merk undertook the project for Aéroports de Paris (ADP).
Finnforest Merk project manager Josef Meier said that the development included a number of demanding technical and reliability requirements, such as the non-constant shape of the elliptical building, fire ratings, the use of non-visible fixings and keeping the intumescent coating as thin as possible.
ADP executive director and chief development officer Bernard Cathelain said that timber had been chosen due to its aesthetic qualities, bringing “a warm indoor ambiance” and “architectural harmony with the steel and glass shell”.
Pier 2E is due to open in the spring with the capacity to handle six million passengers a year from 10 contact stands, before increasing to nine million from 17 stands in 2009.
