01Roof tile colour samples
02Paving pedestals for decks and raised floors
03Skylights on show
04Velux’s 180-degree tilting window
05Mirko Arend, BAU exhibition director
06Carpenter’s toolkit
07Apprentice carpenters at work
08Trying out a Hilti cordless hammer drill for size
09Würth abrasive discs for grinding machines
10Caulking colour chart from Otto Chemie
11Buyers’ meeting room
12Life-sized mock-ups
13Hands-on exhibits are up for grabs
14A sleek and secure Siedle video intercom
15Schüco’s façade display at BAU
16Architects examine photovoltaic panels at Boehme Systems stand
17Building block game at an exhibitor’s booth
18Sliding door at the Häfele stand
19Lignotrend’s soundproof wood is integrated into a wall’s design
BAU is the world’s largest fair for the construction and architecture industries while also being a dream getaway for home handymen. From grand designs to garden sheds, Monocle visits the design world’s most no-nonsense gathering.
Set up by Martin Hilti during the Second World War in Schaan, Liechtenstein’s biggest city, the Hilti Group manufactures anchors, fasteners and power tools used by construction workers for basic tasks such as drilling large holes or affixing metal framing onto concrete. Still run by a family-controlled foundation, the firm employs 22,000 staff across eight plants, five of them in Europe, and in 2012 recorded €3.3bn in sales. Its fire-engine red line of drills, screwdrivers, sanders and hammers have earned its in-house designers accolades for their ease of use. Hilti’s diamond-tipped coring tools can blast through concrete, stone and asphalt and at BAU the firm showed off its TE30 drill with vacuum cleaner kit that simultaneously sucks up dust.
hilti.com
Founded in 1941 by Danish engineer Villum Kann Rasmussen, Velux is the leading manufacturer of skylights and roof windows for residential housing and has 10,000 workers worldwide. The brand’s models can be fitted with sunscreens and operated by remote control to open windows fitted into high ceilings. Made with a pinewood frame, its centre-pivot window rotates the pane 180 degrees to let homeowners clean outward-facing glass from inside. Velux’s booth at BAU showed its new range of modular skylights developed with Foster + Partners for use in office buildings requiring ventilation and daylight. Prefabricated frames are made of a glass fibre composite that insulates like wood but is as strong as steel.
velux.com
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1. FSB
Based in the Westphalia region, furniture fittings firm FSB makes door handles out of aluminium, stainless steel and bronze. Founded in 1881, today the manufacturer works with prominent designers and architects from Jasper Morrison to David Chipperfield. Its minimalist levers appear in Apple’s flagship Manhattan store and FSB designer Johannes Potente’s 1051 handle model was one of four chosen by New York’s MoMA for its museum collection.
fsb.de
2. Würth Group
Still in the hands of the Würth family, the German heavyweight started modestly turning out screws at the end of the Second World War. Today it supplies parts and tools to the automotive and construction industries, the latter worth more than half a billion euros in sales annually. Carpenters, roofers, concrete contractors and bricklayers buy everything from brackets to pneumatic wrenches and the company even saves workers time by bringing hardware to them – its Bauloc mobile shops are based at large construction sites.
wuerth.com
3. Schüco
Germany’s Schüco makes window and façade components for building exteriors. The brand has annual sales of €2.2bn for its modular cladding systems, which incorporate blinds and solar cells in composite insulating glass, to make new and old structures greener. The company introduced its 3D parametric design concept at BAU that allows architects the freedom to make complex geometric facades in CAD and then translate the shapes onto standardised façade panels to keep costs down.
schueco.com
4. Siedle
Based in the Black Forest, the Siedle family started out casting bells for local clockmakers in the mid-18th century. Since the 1930s the brand has made its mark at the entrances to residences and offices with its über-sleek intercom systems. Panels are made from stainless steel, aluminium or brass with sharp fonts and a video lens. This not only lets occupants see who is arriving but takes a picture when the doorbell is rung to capture burglars on the hunt for empty homes and Siedle’s letterboxes are opened by a biometric fingerprint reader.
siedle.de
5. Lignotrend
While most prefer the sight of well-laid parquet, those living downstairs don’t appreciate the thud made by heeled shoes on wood. At its BAU stand, German brand Lignotrend was showing its cross-laminated timber paneling made from thin strips of knotless silver fir and spruce panels that fit onto ceilings, walls and floors, backed with noise-absorbing wood fibreboard. “The benefit is that they are integrated into the building and not suspended like conventional acoustic panels,” says Tobias Amann, a master carpenter at Lignotrend.
lignotrend.com
While Germany’s national football team rarely fails to deliver on the pitch, the country’s architects and companies have scored successes off the field too. Since hosting the 2006 World Cup, local firms have applied engineering know-how to win more contracts at sporting tournaments. In South Africa in 2010, Munich-based lighting manufacturer Osram, which lit eight of the 10 stadiums, took €1bn in orders and will supply the world’s largest LED stadium screen for the 2014 World Cup opening match in São Paulo. Having designed a trio of venues in South Africa, GMP Architekten will also be in Brazil next year. “For publicity, stadiums are great. No one sees a 300,000 sq m office park,” says GMP architect Martin Glass.
Issue 8
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Issue 31
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Issue 57
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Issue 24
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Issue 10
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Issue 23
Iceland's healthy take on the pharmacy, a playful kindergarten in Germany, making Hay in Copenhagen and the sharpest knives in the box.
Issue 21
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Issue 15
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Issue 16
Japanese bentwood homewares, Vicente Guallart's Spanish coastline de-clutter and Danish Mountain Dwellings.
Issue 31
Dai Nippon Printing’s new training centre, by architect Kenya Ishihara, was designed to inspire its employees. With a spa and views of Mount Fuji, it seems more like a retreat than a place of work but with this incentive…
Issue 54
Once a workers’ district, the Ehrenfeld neighbourhood in Köln is luring a multi-cultural mix of families and creatives with its competitive housing prices and well- preserved architecture.
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