Zurich, North Americian HQ

Summary

Zurich North America's stunning 783,800-square-foot headquarters in Schaumburg bucks the trend of corporations abandoning suburban campuses for city centers. The massive glass, steel and wood structure is a throwback to an era when architecture was highly valued as a way for a company to make a statement about itself.

Glass

The most advanced facade assembly occurs along the glazed south-facing wall of a three-story cafeteria where a ventilated double-wall facade was specified. Here, to verify performance and optimize the façade for reduced energy consumption, Thornton Tomasetti provided computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling. The 4.5-foot-wide double wall with integrated shades is designed to reduce solar gains in summer, while increasing the gains in the winter, as well as to improve daylighting, resulting in an estimated 33 percent energy savings in the adjacent space.
IGU make-up; 25.5mm Low Iron SGP Toughened Heat soaked Laminate; 12mm Black Spacer; 10mm Low Iron Low E Tempered Heat Soaked; Argon Gas Filled
Largest Unit- 1504mm X 4931mm (59” X 194”)

Details

The curtain wall facade wraps outboard of three super scale trusses that are set 60 feet on center, achieving an 180-foot span over the middle of the campus, and a 30-foot cantilever at the perimeter. The three primary “bars” stacked and arranged to maximize views of the surrounding landscape and optimize solar orientation.

Awards

U.S. Green Building Council LEED Platinum certification

Building Design+Construction 2017 Building - Silver Award

2017 International Architecture Award