Guangzhou Dingchengzun Building Materials Co., Ltd., a Chinese manufacturer of architectural aluminum ceiling and facade systems, has completed a large-scale aluminum baffle ceiling installation at Almaty Airport in Kazakhstan, covering a total area of 12,643 square meters across the terminal’s interior spaces. The project, completed in 2026, represents one of the company’s largest single-site overseas installations to date and illustrates several recurring technical challenges in large-format airport ceiling work: maintaining visual consistency at scale, integrating mechanical and lighting systems into an open ceiling structure, and meeting fire-safety requirements specific to high-occupancy public transportation buildings.
Project Background
Almaty Airport is Kazakhstan’s busiest air transportation hub, and like most international terminals, its interior fit-out carries a demanding set of design and performance requirements. Ceiling systems in airport terminals are rarely judged on appearance alone — they must also accommodate dense overhead infrastructure, including lighting grids, HVAC diffusers, fire sprinklers, smoke exhaust systems, signage, and cable trays, while remaining accessible for ongoing inspection and maintenance throughout decades of continuous public use.
For this project, the airport’s design team specified a linear aluminum baffle ceiling system, a configuration that uses open, evenly spaced aluminum profiles suspended below the structural slab. Compared with fully enclosed panel ceilings, baffle systems are commonly chosen for transportation buildings because their open structure simplifies coordination with overhead building systems without sacrificing a clean, ordered sightline across long terminal spans.
Dingchengzun was selected to supply and engineer the ceiling system for the project, providing both the aluminum baffle components and the supporting suspension framework.
Project Specifications
The installation used custom-fabricated aluminum baffles measuring 30mm in width by 150mm in depth, formed from 1.4mm-thick aluminum sheet. The baffles were finished in RAL9016 through a powder-coating process, producing a bright, traffic-white surface tone selected to maximize perceived brightness across the terminal’s large interior volume — a common design objective in airport projects, where natural light is often limited in central circulation areas.
The ceiling system carries an A2 fire rating under China’s GB 8624 building materials fire classification standard, verified through third-party laboratory testing. This classification aligns with the elevated fire-safety requirements typically specified for ceiling and wall materials in high-occupancy public transportation infrastructure, where non-combustibility and limited smoke generation are primary safety criteria.
| Specification | Detail |
| Project Location | Almaty Airport, Kazakhstan |
| Application Area | Airport terminal interior |
| Installation Area | 12,643 m² |
| Baffle Dimensions | 30mm (width) × 150mm (depth) |
| Material Thickness | 1.4mm |
| Surface Finish | RAL9016, powder coating |
| Fire Rating | A2 |
| Suspension System | Double-layer framework support |
| Project Year | 2026 |
| Packaging | Plastic-sealed, road transportation |
Engineering the Ceiling-Lighting Interface
Among the technical challenges the project team identified, one recurring issue stood out: coordinating the aluminum baffle ceiling with the terminal’s lighting fixtures across a continuous 12,643-square-meter span. The installation needed to satisfy two requirements simultaneously — light fixtures had to remain visually integrated within the linear baffle pattern so the ceiling read as a single, uninterrupted architectural surface, while also being mechanically secured well enough to prevent loosening over years of operation in a high-traffic public facility.
This is a familiar tension in large-scale baffle ceiling installations. A single-layer suspension grid can support baffles adequately on its own, but where lighting fixtures penetrate or interrupt the baffle run, the additional point loads and access requirements introduced by light fittings can create localized stress points that a basic suspension layer is not always designed to absorb evenly — particularly across a ceiling area large enough that even small per-unit deflections compound visibly over the full span.
To address this, Dingchengzun specified a double-layer framework suspension system rather than a conventional single-layer grid. The secondary framework layer was designed to distribute structural load more evenly across the ceiling grid and to provide a more stable mounting interface at the points where lighting fixtures intersect with the baffle layout. In practical terms, this approach allowed the lighting to sit cleanly within the ceiling’s linear rhythm while giving installers a firmer, more redundant fixing point for each fitting — reducing the long-term risk of fixture loosening that can occur with lighter-duty suspension systems in large, continuously trafficked spaces.
Maintaining Consistency at Scale
Large-area ceiling installations introduce a manufacturing and installation challenge that is easy to underestimate: the larger the continuous ceiling surface, the more visible any inconsistency becomes. Across 12,643 square meters, even minor variation in baffle spacing, panel straightness, or powder-coat color tone is magnified by repetition and can read as a visible flaw across an otherwise unified ceiling plane — particularly with a bright, uniform finish like RAL9016 white, where color and gloss variation is far more noticeable than it would be with a darker or textured surface.
To manage this, the project required tight dimensional tolerances during fabrication and a coordinated installation sequence to keep baffle alignment, spacing, and surface finish consistent from one section of the terminal to the next. Maintaining this consistency across a multi-zone airport interior — typically built out in sequential phases rather than a single continuous run — depends as much on production-line repeatability as it does on field installation accuracy.
Logistics and Material Handling
Given the project’s overseas location and the sensitivity of a powder-coated white finish to surface damage, the aluminum baffles were packed using plastic-sealed protective packaging prior to road transportation. Surface protection during transit is a particular concern for light-colored powder-coated aluminum, where even minor scuffing, dust transfer, or handling marks can be visible once panels are installed under terminal lighting — making packaging integrity a meaningful factor in the project’s overall quality outcome, separate from the manufacturing tolerances themselves.
About the Product Line
The aluminum baffle ceiling system used at Almaty Airport is part of Dingchengzun’s broader linear ceiling product range, which includes U-shaped, rectangular, and square-tube baffle profiles available in custom dimensions, spacing, and surface finishes — including powder coating, PVDF fluorocarbon coating, anodized finishes, and wood-grain textures. The product line is positioned for airport, transit, healthcare, hospitality, and large-format commercial interior applications where open ceiling structures, MEP coordination, and long-term durability are primary design drivers.
Beyond the Almaty Airport project, Dingchengzun has supplied aluminum ceiling and facade systems for a range of building types internationally, including transit stations, hospitals, hotels, and commercial interiors, reflecting a broader pattern of demand for customizable aluminum ceiling systems in markets where large-scale public infrastructure and commercial construction are expanding.
About Dingchengzun
Guangzhou Dingchengzun Building Materials Co., Ltd. is a manufacturer of architectural aluminum ceiling and facade systems based in Panyu District, Guangzhou. The company supplies custom aluminum baffle, grid, clip-in, lay-in, and strip ceiling systems, along with aluminum veneer facade panels, for airport, transit, healthcare, hospitality, and commercial construction projects.
