Barrier-free fire resistant doors for a smooth flow of visitors

From trade fairs to major cultural events – Olma Messen St. Gallen attracts up to 800,000 visitors every year and is a central meeting point in Eastern Switzerland. Completed in 2024, the St. Galler Kantonalbank Hall trade fair site will be expanded to include a multifunctional event space for up to 12,000 people. A particular challenge for Zurich-based architecture firm Ilg Santer was building over the Rosenberg Tunnel, which runs diagonally beneath the site and through which runs the A1 motorway, one of the region’s central transport routes. The hall was therefore designed as a column-free structure with few statically relevant support points and combines the forecourt, foyer and hall to create a functional room layout.

Fire protection and orientation in the event of a high number of visitors

In order to guide visitors safely and efficiently into and through the hall, precise route guidance was crucial. Designing the underground car park planned underneath the hall was particularly complex, as strict fire safety regulations had to be reconciled with clear escape route guidance in a confined space. The central escape routes therefore provide threshold-free fire protection sliding doors with forster fuego light with 30 minutes of fire resistance (EI30). They are equipped with a circumferential sealing level, thus ensuring increased airtightness. Thanks to slim profiles, the robust steel frame construction of the automatically opening leaf ensures safety and intuitive orientation even when there is a large number of visitors. The fixed glazing integrated into the walls as portholes also creates clear visual contact between the adjacent fire zones.

Functional doors for exterior and interior use

Emergency exits from underground car parks into the open air not only have to meet the highest safety requirements, but also have to be extremely robust and low-maintenance. The architects therefore opted for doors with the forster unico profile systems specially developed for stability and long service life. In addition to meeting the required safety standards, the solid sheet metal hinged doors used in the facade impress with their high energy efficiency and design flexibility. Thanks to the thermal separation of the profiles made from 100% recyclable steel and special insulation in the door leaf, they minimise heat loss. Their robust design with RC2 or optionally RC3 burglary resistance makes them the ideal solution for high-traffic areas. The use of Forster Profile Systems in the underground car park of the St. Galler Kantonalbank Hall thus demonstrates not least how well-thought-out building technology and high-quality profile systems help to meet the highest design and functional requirements in complex construction projects.

St. Gallen, Switzerland

Products:

forster fuego light fire protection sliding doors (EI30) with circumferential sealing level for increased airtightness;

forster fuego light EI60 fire protection fixed glazing;

Solid sheet exterior and interior doors with forster unico

Architecture: Ilg Santer Architekten GmbH, Zurich, Switzerland

Metal construction: Wüst Metallbau AG, Altstätten, Switzerland (fire protection sliding doors EI30); Wehrli Metallbau AG, Bronschhofen, Switzerland (forster unico exterior/interior doors); Metallbau Gontenbad AG, Appenzell, Switzerland (fire protection fixed glazing EI60)

Client: Genossenschaft Olma Messen St. Gallen, Switzerland

General contractor: Nüesch Development AG, St. Gallen, Switzerland

Photography: Thomas Hary