"Technology for ideas" is WICONA's new brand slogan. The brand intends to prove, with the Spiegel deliveries, that the slogan is right on target, and that this particular architectural design can become reality.

WICONA will deliver a range of special solutions for the "Ericusspitze" project, as it is being called, to fulfill all the project's technical, visual and ecological requirements.  

Indeed, a wide range of specific system constructions and profiles had to be designed in order to meet all requirements, and WICONA's project department accomplished what it set out to achieve.

The Spiegel buildings will receive a combination of double-skin facades with wood compound windows and triple glazing, a stick-system curtain wall in structural glazing technology, and a number of aluminium windows.

The energy and services technology concept of the building will integrate aspects like ecology, economy and social integrity. Sustainability was the key word for the integrative planning of the project.

All curtain walls are energy optimized. The façade units with a width of 1.35 meters comprise a transparent fixed glazing and an opaque sash of 40 centimeters, and provide the buildings with an overall transparent surface of 50 percent.

The aluminium frame constructions will be prefabricated in units by the metal building company Schindler GmbH, and then installed on site.

This production process guarantees short production and assembly times as well as high manufacturing quality in the company workshop.The entire building is planned to be finished by the end of 2010.

Since 1952, the Spiegel Group has been headquartered in its own building in the old town part of Hamburg.

Der Spiegel is Germany's best-known weekly magazine, similar to Time and Newsweek in the United States and The Economist in the UK. Its weekly circulation is above one million.

• For more information, see link in the right-hand column
  to the WICONA website