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© Daniel Spehr
The assembly of a closed-cavity facade differs from other double-skin facades in that it is made up of separate sealed units. This is advantageous when the aim is to achieve a high standard of thermal insulation and sound protection, maximum transparency, reduced cleaning costs, maintenance-free solar protection, and an expedited construction phase. In the new administrative building at Roche Diagnostics AG, not only these storey-high “box-windows” are employed for the first time on a large scale: combining building-component activation and room acoustics with concealed absorber strips is also a premiere, and the water-mist fire suppression system was employed for the first time in a Swiss building. (Andreas Hell, Frank Kaltenbach)