New construction project in Egelsbach: half-time, but no break

The new build­ing project with which SMC Ger­many is expand­ing at its head­quar­ters in Egels­bach near Frank­furt am Main is very much on sched­ule. “The shell of our new pro­duc­tion and dis­tri­b­u­tion build­ings is grow­ing every day,” says Ralf Laber, Man­ag­ing Direc­tor. Con­struc­tion of the 17,000-square-meter facil­i­ties can already cel­e­brate half-time.

Sustainable neighborhood for long-term growth

The com­pa­ny is focus­ing on a long-term per­spec­tive: the new build­ings are not only intend­ed to improve inter­nal logis­tics by link­ing pro­duc­tion, ware­hous­ing and dis­tri­b­u­tion. Ralf Laber: “Unit­ing these three areas already saves a lot of effort and resources, makes us more pro­duc­tive and enables faster deliv­ery times. But we want to use it to achieve even more.” Around 80 per­cent of the roof area will be greened, thus pas­sive­ly improv­ing the build­ing’s cli­mate. In addi­tion, solar cells with an out­put of around 500 kilo­watts will gen­er­ate elec­tric­i­ty on the pro­duc­tion build­ing in the future, mak­ing SMC less depen­dent on fos­sil fuels.

“How­ev­er, we did­n’t just con­sid­er our own sus­tain­abil­i­ty dur­ing the design process, but also looked for ways to move the site for­ward. That’s why we planned a rain­wa­ter reten­tion sys­tem that cap­tures excess water.” The stored water ben­e­fits a farm in the neigh­bor­hood, which can access it in the event of a dry sum­mer. The reser­voir con­tains more than two mil­lion liters. Pas­cal Boru­si­ak: “This under­lines our long-term com­mit­ment to the region.”

- Pas­cal Boru­si­ak, Direc­tor Busi­ness Operations

“Green” planning from shell construction to operation

Any­one who cur­rent­ly sees the con­struc­tion site may start to won­der whether indus­tri­al build­ings are real­ly being built there. The sup­port­ing struc­ture in the shell looks more like a half-tim­bered house. Appear­ances are not decep­tive, how­ev­er, because the build­ing is not only being con­struct­ed in steel and rein­forced con­crete, but also with 1,230 cubic meters of wood, which cor­re­sponds to a weight of 615 tons. Yet the mate­r­i­al has long been used inter­na­tion­al­ly and is expe­ri­enc­ing a renais­sance in Europe as well.

“The advan­tages of tim­ber con­struc­tion for the indus­tri­al sec­tor are many,” says Pas­cal Boru­si­ak. “Wood has a long ser­vice life and does not cor­rode. It is also much lighter than steel, allow­ing for faster and more cost-effec­tive con­struc­tion with­out bored piles while main­tain­ing the same sta­bil­i­ty and load-bear­ing capac­i­ty.” In addi­tion, wood is a renew­able resource and, with a high span of 31 meters, the wood­en struc­ture offers a light room as well as more space, since few sup­ports are need­ed. How­ev­er, one argu­ment in par­tic­u­lar stands out: wood is more suit­able than steel in the event of a fire.

Pas­cal Boru­si­ak explains why: “Wood is very resis­tant to fire and does not deform even in high heat like steel, for exam­ple. This con­tributes sig­nif­i­cant­ly to struc­tur­al integri­ty and safe­ty in the event of a fire.” Ralf Laber is pleased with the suc­cess­ful progress of con­struc­tion: “As a lead­ing man­u­fac­tur­er, part­ner and solu­tion provider for elec­tri­cal and pneu­mat­ic automa­tion tech­nol­o­gy, we sell our prod­ucts world­wide. With our new build­ing project here in Egels­bach, we are show­ing that despite all our inter­na­tion­al suc­cess, we remain con­nect­ed to our home country.”