Closed Cavity Facade in Zurich

With a floor space of 180,000 m², The Circle at Zurich Airport is currently the largest building construction project in Switzer­land and the first to be realised by Riken Yamamoto in Europe. The Japanese architect has ­designed a glass city consisting of six buildings between nine ­and eleven storeys high. These accommodate, among other things, the headquarters of the airport operator, two hotels, a conference centre, an outpatient health centre of the University Hospital Zurich, as well as ­offices and retail stores. 

The Circle is protected from traffic noise by an 83,000-m² ­energy-efficient and highly sound-insulating Closed Cavity facade by Josef Gartner. Along the ring road, it together with the fascia leans over the base by up to 15 m and forms a homogeneously curved outer skin with the cold-formed outer panels. This required 1,578 different element configurations with various angles of inclination between 10.5 and 18.4° outwards, as well as cold deformations of the outer panels on one corner of up to ­
50 mm. Such a wide range of variants of oblique-angled panes required an elaborate 3D design process.

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www,josef-gartner.com