2020-05-19

ALUPROF Opens Brama Miasta

Not far from the geographical heart of Łódź, just a stone’s throw from Łódź Fabryczna railway station, the construction of the Brama Miasta development is close to completion. The complex, which consists of two thirteen-storey buildings, is set to be handed over this year, at the end of the second quarter. Brama Miasta features ALUPROF window, door and façade systems.

Located on ulica Kilińskiego, the Brama Miasta development is a prime spot in Nowy Centrum/the New Centre, which encompasses part of central Łódź and unites business, communications and culture. The development consists of two buildings, A and B. Building B was opened in May last year and provides 27 000 m2 of office space. Building A is expected to offer 13 800 m2. In total, Brama Miasta will function as a workplace for five thousand people.

Prestigious appearance, awards and certificates

The development was designed by Polish collaborative, interdisciplinary studio Medusa Group, one of the world’s most prestigious and renowned architects’ practices. The architects in charge of the project are Przemo Łukasik and Łukasz Zagała. The buildings owe their distinctive, rusty appearance to their weathering-steel façades. In addition to the decorative qualities of the material, a patina forms on the surface. This has a corrosion-retarding effect, increasing the steel’s weather-resistant properties.

As Przemo Łukasik of Medusa Group explains:

We didn’t want to flirt with glamour or to create a second Arc de Triomphe. We weren’t interested in whether or not the development became a new icon. What mattered to us was that it would be simple and practical and that the people of Łódź would develop a fondness for it. The two buildings look like one; it’s as if it’s been sliced open with a scalpel and the two parts have been pushed to either side, creating a gateway to the city*. The inner side of the cut exposes the innards. The glass used there creates a mirror effect, reflecting the surroundings. That welds the buildings even more firmly to the fabric of the city. The rest of the elevations were created using weathering-steel, with its elegant, rusty appearance. That’s our interpretive reference to the industrial history of Łódź.

[*Brama Miasta translates as ‘city / town gate’ – trans.]

In the Office Building category of the prestigious Property Design Awards 2020, Brama Miasta received the most votes from the readers of architecture website “Property Design” and won the award. The complex has also received a LEED Gold green building certificate and a Barrier-Free Building certificate, meaning that it is accessible to disabled users.

Energy-saving aluminium joinery

The Brama Miasta design had to meet rigorous standards for its energy-saving and thermal isolation coefficients. The buildings feature the ALUPROF MB-86SI window and door system with a thermal break. With its increased insulation properties, the system is a response to the trend for sustainable building; the parameters it achieves mean that, used in external architectural elements, it improves a building’s energy efficiency. It is also notable for the exceptional durability of the aluminium profiles, which make it possible to create large-scale, heavy structures without compromising the system’s aesthetics or properties.

Brama Miasta is also fitted with exterior doors with a thermal break. They were produced using the ALUPROF MB-70HI system. The construction of the MB-70HI reduces the flow of warm air and limits both convection and thermal radiation. In addition to their enhanced insulation properties, the durable, state-of-the-art aluminium doors provide elegant design and a high level of security.

The Brama Miasta façade was also designed on the basis of ALUPROF systems and the greater part of the surface is covered by the MB-SR50N EFEKT semi-structural, mullion and transom curtain wall. The precision-designed infill attachment system makes it flexible and economical to adapt in order to meet the technical requirements of a given design. It includes solutions which allow the load to be transferred from the glass to the profile, with a capacity of up to 1 100 kilos. This system is what made it possible to attain a smooth, uniform glass façade divided by a structure of two-centimetre-wide perpendicular and horizontal strips.

For the superstructure of the two buildings, the ALUPROF MB-SR50N mullion and transom curtain wall was used. The thinking behind the design was of lightweight, suspended or infilled curtain walls, as well as roofs, skylights and other structures of the kind.

The ground floor façade of the Brama Miasta also features an ALUPROF system, the MB-SR50N OW awning and parallel opening window. The structure, which is based on aluminium profiles with a thermal break, makes it possible to create large-scale windows with high technical parameters. The parallel opening section can weigh up to one hundred and eighty kilograms.