The top floor of the new building will contain creative spaces for the employees with direct access to the rooftop terrace of the neighboring building. "We want to continue to foster the creativity of our employees and make a conscious effort to create space for it," explained Dr. Kurt Schmalz, managing partner of the company. The flexible conceptual design of the building is intended to accommodate both current and future models of working. "More and more often, we've been working in interdisciplinary, internationally active teams, with the resulting development methods often turning out to be extremely agile," said Dr. Schmalz. The building supports this modern way of working together, with space set aside for creative zones and retreat rooms as well as first-rate technical facilities for exchanging information quickly and efficiently.
The construction will make use of modern and energy-efficient techniques, with night-time ventilation and intake air cooled in a rock crevice keeping the temperature perfect at all times. A CO2-controlled ventilation system with waste heat recovery and an intelligent, energy-saving area lighting system will be two more features of the building. "Numerous other measures will contribute to its undershooting the provisions of energy-saving legislation by more than 55%," stated Wolfgang Schmalz, managing partner.
In the last few years, the Schmalz group has grown rapidly and kept investing in expanding its headquarters in Glatten: a production hall in 2009 with more than 10,000 square meters (nearly 110,000 square feet) of space, a new research and experimental center in 2014, and finally a new communications center for visitors and employees in 2016. For 2017, another construction project is already in the starting blocks, namely an expansion of the production and logistics facilities.
Schmalz has a total of approximately 1,200 employees at its headquarters in Glatten and its 17 overseas subsidiaries.