This week on BBC 2 Richard Hammond’s series entitled Engineering Connections looked at the world famous Guggenheim Museum of modern and contemporary art in Bilbao designed by Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry. In the program the ‘Hamster’ as he is know by his colleagues on Top Gear visits the building described as the 'greatest of our time' to find out which engineering connections made it possible. These included eggs [lightweight shell structures] and volcanoes [mineral wool to protect the steel structure in a fire].
To find out how mineral wool protects a building he conducted his own fire test using Rockwool insulation fixed to a metal sheet. You can see this near the end of the programme. It is available on BBC I-player http://bbc.co.uk/i/snkxs/?t=41m15s
He was convinced and could see why the designers of the Guggenheim chose mineral wool to protect the structure from fire.
If Rockwool is relied upon to protect the iconic Guggenheim building – Eurobond panels with a Rockwool core should be first choice and will guarantee top of the range fire performance.
The complete programme is available on BBC Iplayer - http://bbc.co.uk/i/snkxs/. Broadcast on: BBC HD, 7:10pm Sunday 30th May 2010 / Duration: 50 minutes - Available until: 8:59pm Sunday 20th June 2010
