Furnicon, the Middle East sales office of Krueger International (KI) –  one of the world’s largest manufacturers of office furniture and partitions –  has supplied to a number of projects in the UAE, among the most recent being the National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD) Tower.

Headquartered in Abu Dhabi, Furnicon is a subsidiary of the Al Bawardi group of companies.
For the NBAD project, the company supplied and installed the Genius full-height moveable wall system designed by Eberhard von Huene and manufactured by Krueger International in the US.
These systems are aesthetically designed, have a high acoustic rating and offer great flexibility in reconfiguring offices, says a senior company official.
Apart from the obvious aesthetic design of the system, the system has fulfilled three key design and engineering criteria for the bank, he says.
Firstly, the Genius demountable wall system has the highest acoustical rating ever achieved in a demountable/moveable partition system with an unprecedented sound transmission coefficient (STC) of 44, controlling sound transmission better than any other product manufactured to date, he claims.
“Another high priority for the project was the ability to reconfigure, move and even interchange the panels,” he says. “The unique engineering of the panels means that they can be reconfigured and moved with no damage to the panels and, most importantly, no damage to the walls or floors in the building itself. This has a real financial benefit as well as convenience, as screw-fixing conventional demountable panels to, say, a suspended floor may well invalidate the floor’s warranty.”
This low-risk/low-cost facility is particularly important for a vibrant, growing institution such as the bank where the configuration of the offices and working environment must constantly evolve to accommodate changes in business purpose, employee needs and wholesale movement of departments and divisions within the building itself, he points out.
“These advantages have already paid off during the course of the NBAD project where significant changes to the office and floor layout design drawings have been accommodated within the original contract order with a minimum of delay and additional expense,” the official adds.
Another key attribute that attracted the bank to the system is the ease with which reconfigurations and movement of the panels can be achieved. Since the panels are completely demountable, leave no damage to the permanent structure and fittings of the building and can be demounted with the simplest of tools, downtime for the bank is practically zero with no interruption or discomfort to employees who can continue to work as normal, he says.
The panels themselves have removable “skins” so that should the bank decide on a different interior colour scheme or texture for the panel surfaces, all it would need to do is change the skins with the panels in situ.
An important factor from the owner’s point of view is that there is practically no requirement for an inventory of spare parts and replacements, minimising the time and expense of managing and storing inventory, losses and the need for repurchasing.
A neat example of this is the pivot-hung doors, which –  since they do not have conventional hinges –  are completely interchangeable between left-hand opening and right-hand opening configurations.  
These attributes, combined with a lifetime warranty, deliver a very low overall cost of ownership for the system, according to Furnicon.
As the official  says: “Yes, the initial cost of investment is relatively high compared to conventional methods, but as soon as you do your first reconfiguration, the system pays itself off.”
So with such sophisticated design and engineering surely the maintenance and reconfiguration of the system is expensive? Not so, he says, “the system is actually very simple with very few parts involved and it is perfectly possible for the owner to use his own staff – after minimal training  – to do the work themselves with minimal tools.”
“In fact, we encourage our clients to do that, as it is only after they see the ease with which they can demount and reconfigure the panels, that they truly appreciate the value of the system,” he concludes.