New flagship location for Swiss Life

The new headquarters of the life insurance company Swiss Life Germany became the latest architectural highlight in Garching, Bavaria, at the end of 2014. More than 11,000 square meters of “anodized look” ALUCOBOND® cover the facade of the new building in the outskirts of the business hub to the north of Munich. In addition to supplying the material, ThyssenKrupp Plastics was also responsible for the tailored processing of the aluminum composite panels.

It took a year and a half to fabricate the four different panel formats at the plastics supplier’s service center. The result is an elegant-looking facade with an impressive velvety matt effect. A special anodized finish to the material also ensures long-lasting corrosion protection.

Precision-cut tailored panels

The greatest challenge lay in fabricating the individual facade panels. To enable the panels to be fastened to an aluminum substructure as liner trays, the material was first cut to size on a computer-controlled machine in accordance with customer wishes. The ALUCOBOND® panels were then milled and delivered to the construction site in Garching. Approx. 200 square meters of finished liner trays in various formats were supplied every week.

For visible dimensions exceeding three meters, ThyssenKrupp Plastics was supported by its sister company in Austria, which produced liner trays in lengths of up to almost five meters. The close, internal and international cooperation enabled the plastics supplier to complete processing and delivery exactly to customer specifications.