Glass façades with large opening widths in the BMW Munich dealership

Just about every car maker today applies strict guidelines to the look of its showrooms and sales areas. With these high requirements in mind, the Munich architects Koch+Partner Architekten und Stadtplaner modernised and expanded the BMW building on t the Frankfurt ring road in Munich. The structure and design of the 1980s building complex were adapted to meet the future needs of a BMW dealership, in line with the 'BMW brand architecture' guidelines.

The completely renovated BMW dealership now promises a sense of adventure, spacious infrastructure and, with a total surface area of almost 30,000 m², plenty of space for future growth. The large standardised glass façades with transparent entrance areas offer perfect light ratios for the open showroom area. The transparent architecture visually opens up and expands the space, creates an inviting atmosphere and turns a simple dealership into a world of adventure One of the challenges facing GEZE with this BMW project was the installation and design of a continuous and wide opening automatic door in the glass façade. The door had to allow cars to enter and exit as quickly as possible, and fit perfectly into the contemporary building aesthetic.

The principle of synchronisation is smart and simple: if a double-leaf sliding door system is not enough for the desired opening width, and there is not enough available 'stacking area' for the door leaves, two telescopic door systems are exactly synchronised with each other. This allows opening widths of up to 600 cm to be achieved. For the BMW dealership building in Munich, GEZE’s solution was to install separate automatic sliding door systems on both sides of the façade opening, consisting of two telescopic doors with four door leaves each, . When closed, both door systems meet in the middle, visually creating a single door system. When the door is open, the telescopic leaves are elegantly varied and save space, and are unobtrusively parked on the sides of the entrance. The continuous door appearance is emphasised by a cover which extends across the drive technology of the entire sliding door system.

The precision, reliability and, most of all, elegance which is expected of premium cars all over the world has to be mirrored by the door technology in the showroom where these cars are presented. Networking the door drives ensures perfectly synchronised opening and closing of both sliding door systems in the glass façade of the BMW dealership. The discreet Slimdrive drive technology, at only 7 cm high, moves the four fine-frame telescopic leaves on each side reliably, precisely and almost silently. For even more convenience, the door leaves can be operated with all conventional activation devices, e.g. remote control, fully non-contact via an infrared sensor, or by an elbow switch