Not only its height of 180 m but also its fascinating spiral design made the headquarters of the reinsurance company SwissRe a landmark in London’s skyline. Sir Norman Foster designed this elegant building according to the company’s logo. The building envelope with its 22000 m2 of double skin façade has a total cladding area of 70000 m2 of glass and metal panels. The outer skin of one floor with a max. diameter of 57 m consists of 144 rhombic and triangular glass elements. It is made of 10 mm tempered glass, 16 mm air space, 2 x 5 mm laminated glass with Low-E coating. Behind transparent glass elements there are mainly offices. The dark glass panes conceive atria up to six floors high.

The complex geometric design was the challenge for the curtain wall manufacturer. Schmidlin used a very sophisticated 3D-Modeling for both planning and production, where design plans were transmitted directly to the production plant. Before the elements were sent on site they were tested for production quality and tolerances on an assembling simulator. For this perfect performance our customer Schmidlin has been awarded “Manufacturer of the Year 2003” by the UK construction industry and the RIBA Stirling Prize 2004 in association with The Architecs' Jounal. We are proud to have contributed to this success story.

Parties involved:

Owner: SwissRe Investments Ltd, UK
Architect: Foster and Partners, London, UK
Main Contractor: Skanska Construction UK Ltd, London

Construction Engineering:

Ove Arup & Partners, London, UK

Engineering and execution of dome:

Waagner Biro, Vienna, Austria

Facade Engineering and execution:

Schmidlin AG, Facade Technologies, Aesch, Switzerland

Sika’s Contribution:

Sikasil SG-500, Sikasil WS-605, Sikaflex-552 and SikaPlan-Membrane System

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