Prior to their work at the Kansas City International Airport, the lead designer and architect had not used gauged porcelain panels as main wallcovering on a large commercial project. To better educate everyone involved, a mockup installation seminar was held at a warehouse in Kansas City for the architectural team, general contractors, setting material, and gauged panel tool providers for hands-on training and installation techniques.

Metro Tile Contractors fabricated their own tables and breaker bars in order to cut 3/8” off the 10’ side of every panel as well as some lift attachments to raise some panels over 40’ high. They also modified some HVAC style lifts to raise panels over the 1’ base piece and wheel them to the walls and install.

The escalator areas posed their own challenges. The panels had to be installed in very tight spaces, somewhere a scissor lift wouldn’t fit, so the panels had to be hoisted to double-stacked bakers that had less than 12” of clearance between the window, baker, and wall. In addition, the panels were installed on a 45-degree ceiling coming down the escalators.

Every piece had to be custom powder coated to a specific Pantone color, selected and sourced locally by the architect. Thousands of sticks of Schluter were also needed on the panels to execute this phenomenal project.