Lifting Bangkok: How a Thai Firm Put Asia's Banks on Rhino Floors

Most people who work in a Bangkok bank tower never think about the floor. They walk over it, plug a laptop into it, and forget it. Yet under a remarkable number of the city's best-known offices, from Citibank's headquarters to the UOB towers on Sathorn, sits a raised floor installed by a company most of those office workers have never heard of: Asia Net Building Services, the Thai firm behind the Rhino brand.

Two friends and a floor

ANBS started in Bangkok in 1997. Its founders were Chanisorn Ounayakovi, known to nearly everyone as Tok, and his business partner Wes Carroll. Wes has since passed away. When Tok talks about the early years, it is clear how much of the company was built on that partnership, and how much he still misses his friend.

The first jobs came quickly. In 1998 ANBS became a dealer for the IMEX lightweight cement-filled steel floor. A year later it won HSBC's Bangkok headquarters, 11,000 m² in a building that was considered unusually forward-looking at the time. The architects had planned for a raised floor from the start, so at every lift landing the concrete slab dropped 15 cm to take it, leaving the finished surface perfectly flush. In 2000 ANBS laid 11,200 m² at SCB Park on Ratchadapisek Road, and won Standard Chartered's Bangkok headquarters and branches.

In 2001 Tok and Wes created the RHINO® trademark through a joint venture with Gypsum Fibre Board (Thailand), and by 2002 they had a calcium sulphate panel plant running in Saraburi.

The move to China

Demand from abroad kept growing, and in 2006 Rhino went to China. A full RhinoEU® production line was running by 2007. In 2010 the company launched RhinoROC®, its steel cementitious panel, from a new plant. Tok runs that side of the business with his partner Jackie Dai, and their factory now produces both the RhinoROC and RhinoEU ranges. ANBS remains his company at home in Bangkok.

The client list followed the factory overseas. Standard Chartered, which had trusted ANBS with its Bangkok headquarters, gave Rhino its Kuala Lumpur headquarters (24,000 m²) in 2004 and its Dubai headquarters (20,000 m²) a year later, with Karachi (5,000 m²) also on the books. Elsewhere, Rhino floors run through a 90,000 m² education campus for Kuwait's PAAET, casinos in Manila and Chile, and Huawei's Dubai headquarters, which is laid in ROC200.

Tested by independent labs

Tok does not hide his ambition for the product. ANBS considers Rhino one of the best raised floors made in Asia and is happy to put it beside European and American brands. What backs that up is a long record of independent testing.

Rhino systems have been tested and accredited by Intertek, SGS, TÜV, Sirim QAS International and ITCO, using laboratories in the United States, Germany, Singapore, Malaysia and Kuwait. RhinoEU earned full-system reports from Sirim QAS and TÜV SÜD PSB in 2008. RhinoROC followed with full-system reports from Intertek in the US in 2016.

The RhinoROC numbers are the ones specifiers ask for. Static load is tested to CISCA 2007, EN 12825 and PSA MOB PF2 PS/SPU. The panel comes through 72 hours of ISO 9227 neutral salt spray and meets ASTM D5116 for low VOC emissions. Meiah® anti-static HPL finishes meet EN 438 Class W2.

Matching the panel to the room

Tok keeps the product story simple. For ordinary offices the workhorse is ROC100, a 600 × 600 mm welded steel panel rated for a 3.56 kN concentrated load. Server rooms and control rooms get ROC200, rated at 4.45 kN and usually finished in anti-static HPL; ANBS has installed it in rooms like these for IRPC and EGAT. Where more strength is needed there is ROC300 at 5.56 kN. And for clients who want a German system, ANBS carries Lindner, whose NORTEC floor went into EGAT.

A Bangkok skyline, seen from below

Walk through the list of Thai projects and you are walking through the city's commercial history. Citibank's headquarters took 27,000 m². UOB has two complete towers on Rhino floors, its 25,000 m² head office and the 15,300 m² UOB Sathorn building. G Tower took 21,000 m², with AXA in the South Wing and Huawei in the North Wing, both on RhinoROC and both LEED Gold.

The data centres tell the same story. PTT's data centre runs on 5,000 m² of Rhino floor, and ANBS floored the whole SET data centre at North Park, Bangkok, in RhinoROC in 2017. Deutsche Bank's Bangkok headquarters added 1,800 m².

Then there is Major Cineplex, which has worked with ANBS for well over a decade. Over that time ANBS has floored the chain's cinema complexes across the country, many of them with around ten screens, adding up to 40,000 m².

Anywhere you can raise a floor

Banks and server rooms made ANBS's name, but the work has never stopped there. The company has raised floors under Major Cineplex's ice rink and bowling alleys, in university lecture halls, and in gyms. ANBS fits out every Virgin Active club in Thailand and spent many years working with California Fitness. Further afield, Rhino floors sit in casinos, airports and campuses.

Tok calls it a great ride, one he started with Wes and carries on today with Jackie. Ask him where Rhino goes next and his answer is short. If someone is thinking about raising a floor, he says, Rhino and ANBS can do it.

Case studies

• Citibank HQ, Bangkok: 27,000 m²
• UOB, Bangkok: two towers, 40,300 m²
• G Tower, Bangkok: 21,000 m² RhinoROC
• Major Cineplex: 40,000 m² across Thailand
• Standard Chartered: Bangkok HQ and regional offices
• HSBC HQ, Bangkok: 11,000 m², 1999