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The flexible igus factory by Nicholas Grimshaw
From the briefing to the architect
“In October 1988, igus purchased a plot of land of about 40,000m2 in Porz-Lind, Cologne city area. This is where development, production, sale, management and planning were to take place. This is where all activities should have their core, this is where igus should have its headquarters. igus has made preparations for fast growth and fast change - i.e. flexibility - in all areas, accompanied by steady consolidation of the enterprise's overall position. The new “igus factory” is intended to guarantee the spatial and technical possibilities for this purpose, with a design that supports the requirements and concerns of employees. It is intended to reflect the products and the core tenet of the corporate philosophy inside and out: innovation - service - reliability - with the customers as the centre of a solar system, which all igus employees and igus entities orbit around so as to solve their problems.”
This short extract from Günter Blase's briefing sent to Nicholas Grimshaw was the basis for the following sketch. It was further developed into the model shown, which was later realised as a factory building.
The factory
Expansion of the factory with a new building in 2023
igus has continued to grow strongly in recent years and is showing an excellent level of development. To be able to cope with future growth and serve the needs of our customers quickly and reliably, we have added a new building to our factory. For this purpose, we continued the flexible concept of the existing factory and the architect at the time, Sir Nicholas Grimshaw. One of the two founders of the Bryden Wood architectural office, Mark Bryden, had already worked on the first factory together with Nicholas Grimshaw - in other words, conditions were ideal.
The new factory building covers 20,000m2 and is located directly opposite our Cologne headquarters, on the other side of Frankfurter Straße. Since autumn 2023, parts of the production facility and office space have found a new home here. A special highlight is the solar system on the roof, which saves more than 242t of CO₂ emissions every year.
Discover Grimshaw's igus factory virtually
What actually happens in our factory at our headquarters in Cologne? Dive into our 360° VR world and discover the most diverse stations from injection moulding to the tool shop to quality control or our laboratory. All stations are also accompanied by interesting information about the factory and the machines.
