Around 70,000 vehicles pass through this section of Munich's Innsbrucker Ring every day. The rows of residential buildings from the 1960s, which were open to the ring road, were closed off by 5-storey extensions designed by Krieger Architekten.
As part of an integrated housing concept, the newly constructed blocks on the busy Innsbrucker Ring have created attractive living space with highly visible lighting at night.
The primary function of the large-scale Pilkington Profilit™ K22/60/7 channel glass façade is to provide an effective sound insulation barrier in front of the entrances to the residential units.
To achieve this, the channel glass in the Munich property was installed in single-shell glazing system on each floor. Integrated operable window elements are grouped on two floors and appear offset in the translucent façade strips. Their width has been matched to that of the profiled structural glazing and is exactly twice the size of the glass elements.
To exploit the translucent effect of Pilkington Profilit™, the architect devised a form of lighting that is as economical as effective: specially positioned fluorescent tubes in conjunction with swivelling reflectors diffuse the wall colours yellow, light blue and light green through the translucent channel glass into the darkness with a milky shimmer.
The project was awarded the German Building Award and the City of Munich's Award for Good Housing Construction.