“Each project is unique; each project is a challenge.” Since 1991 Czech company Sipral has delivered construction and design projects throughout Europe following this motto. Sipral specializes in element façades, fire-protection structures and bespoke glass and aluminium designs. It all gives our machines the opportunity to display their full capabilities in production.
Sipral was founded in 1991.
Image copyright: Sipral
Sipral was founded in Prague in 1991 by Leopold Bareš, and today he remains at the helm as Chairman of the Board of a company which has now become one of the leading Czech providers of glass and aluminium light curtain walling for buildings. Its 300 employees work at the company headquarters in Prague, the Jirny production and storage centre near Prague and also in London. Most of Sipral’s projects are situated in the Czech Republic and the UK. The company’s turnover grew from €0.5 million in 1992 to €65 million in 2018, and its key customers are typically general contractors, investors and architects, mostly from the building, construction & real estate sector.
Sipral’s machine pool includes the following elumatec machines: the SBZ 131 eluCam, the SBZ 122/75 and the DG 244 and DG 142 double mitre saws.
A reliable performer: the SBZ 131 in the Sipral production facility.
Sipral staff are delighted with the new SBZ 122/75 profile machining centre, which has been well received on the market as it achieves previously unseen speeds and acceleration values. As Leopold Bareš explains, this is a major benefit for the company: “We are expecting it to boost our productivity by 20 percent and to reduce unexpected machine downtimes.”
In fact, Sipral has two SBZ 122/75 machines in use simultaneously in order to machine aluminium profiles as quickly and efficiently as possible. A further key advantage is the DC link coupling in the axis drives, which makes the SBZ 122/75 profile machining centre, the winner of the 2018 German Design Award, particularly energy-efficient.
Sipral is equally impressed with elumatec’s service and support, which covers everything from consultation when choosing new machines to training for new staff working with elumatec machines. “We very rarely have problems with the machines, and if something does go wrong, we always get exactly the support we need which takes into account our specific requirements,” says Bareš. Sipral’s Chairman of the Board also appreciates the long service life of all elumatec products; the machines still work smoothly and reliably, despite some of them being in use for more than ten years.
Sipral has carved out a name for itself in the sector thanks to its creative approach to each individual project. The company aims to design new façade systems which meet its customers’ aesthetic and technical requirements, and each system undergoes extensive structural analysis and thermal and acoustic testing in separate test centres. “We try to reflect our customers’ values by producing intelligent, visually appealing façades featuring innovative technology, and of course the design must be long-lasting and reliable as well,” says Bareš.
The AFI Vokovice complex in Prague
Examples of this successful approach include the AFI Vokovice complex in Prague, “The Diamond” at the University of Sheffield and the Paris La Défense Arena, a multi-purpose 40,000-capacity stadium which is home to rugby club Racing 92 and will be a venue for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. Sipral supplied the double-skin stadium envelope, which rises from the first to the fourth floor and partially consists of sheet metal lamellas including thermal insulation.
The striking outer shell of the Paris La Défense Arena is one of many European projects delivered by our customer Sipral.
The external section, in front of the sheet metal cladding, consists of three types of shells: fully glazed panels, composite panels and glass/composite panels. Sipral also installed gutters with a decorative cladding made from further composite panels under the shell section.
“The Diamond” at the University of Sheffield
Another of Sipral’s flagship projects is a striking addition to the Copenhagen skyline. Opened in 2017, Amager Bakke is one of Denmark’s newest and most environmentally friendly waste-to-energy plants, handling 400,000 tonnes of waste a year.
Amager Bakke, Kopenhagen
But that’s not all the building does: it was built in the shape of a slope to allow a range of recreational activities on its roof, including skiing. Early on in the Amager Bakke project, Sipral came up with a different technical solution for the façade from the original plan, which reduced the construction weight, simplified transport and production and reduced the overall construction costs. As winner of the public tender, Sipral designed and produced the building’s intricate external envelope as well as an internal wall with a special glazing to separate the operational and administrational areas of the plant. Both façades were subjected to rigorous testing for air permeability, waterproofness and resistance to wind loads. The visible layer of the façade was covered by approximately 3250 natural aluminium “bricks” or cassettes, which gives the plant a distinctive, attractive appearance, while the internal wall was designed to provide fire and acoustic protection so that staff can work safely and without annoying noise even when the plant is in operation.
The British capital is the location of Sipral’s latest project, the Wardian London, which is making a real statement. Scheduled for completion in 2020, the 170 m and 183 m high-rise towers will be two of Britain’s tallest buildings, with the interior featuring 792 luxury apartments and a Sky Lounge offering a unique view over London. Sipral is supplying three-metre long aluminium structures for the balconies with fully glazed railings, the supporting steel brackets and other sections of the building shell including balconies, sliding doors and glazed windows and corner panels. The windows stretch from the ceiling to the floor, bathing the inside of the building in natural light, while the glazed railings alone have a total surface area of 14,550 m² and the façade for the two towers comes to 40,000 m² overall. The non-transparent façade sections, such as the hanging balcony ceilings, were clad in aluminium using a construction method that avoids the need for a crane and were installed from the inside of the building.
Sipral has won no fewer than ten major European prizes for its projects, the most recent being the 2017 European Steel Design Award for the Amager Bakke waste-to-energy plant. We are proud to play a part in this Czech company’s success and delighted that we have now worked together for over 20 years – here’s to even more success in future projects
For more about Sipral visit: www.sipral.com
