St. Erik Eye Hospital in Solna, Sweden is an eye clinic with high requirements for sound insulation, hygiene, light transmission, and the possibility to install large medical equipment in the building.

UPB carried out the engineering, production and assembly of the building frame and façade. In total it involved a 11 150 square metre glass façade made of 1213 façade elements, 1700 tonnes of steel structures and 4400 prefabricated concrete elements.

Several challenges were solved

• There is a helicopter landing spot near the clinic so there were high requirements for sound insulation. The façade had to bear 50 decibels. UPB engineers found a way to do this.
• As it is a clinic there are high requirements regarding hygiene. To satisfy these requirements we used antibacterial glass with silver ions.
• UPB had to foresee a possibility to remove a large part of the façade in the case if any large equipment might be removed or installed in the hospital. To solve this our engineers designed large and heavy façade elements on both sides of the building. One such element is more than 18 square metres large (about the size of a medium living room), and had to be transported and installed with special building machinery. There are 17 elements in the building larger than 18 square metres.
• As an eye clinic and a building that was built according to Miljobyggnad requirements, there were tough requirements on the light transmission through the façade and we installed the façade with 2 different types of blinds – external blinds and internal blackouts; we have also foreseen an opportunity to attach one more blind for in the case if the tenant needs it. It was the architect’s requirement to hide the external blinds in some parts of the facades and this was achieved by hiding them under the special glass.
• The architect had an idea to make the building look more appealing by designing large vertical façade with a width of 350 mm and . It was slightly challenging to install the large lamelas and find a solution to avoid thermal bridges. As to the glass parts with a waterfall effect, UPB found a solution to satisfy the architect’s requirements.

This project is unique due to the fact that UPB delivered all three structures – glass, steel and concrete. This way of working has several benefits:

• as all works are performed by one supplier, it is more precise to estimate costs and the execution deadline for the project;
• in the engineering process, engineers of steel, concrete and glass work together within one team, thus making sure that there is a perfect fit between the frame and façade;
• the assembly of the frame and façade can be performed in parallel, so it saves time and costs of construction machinery.

There are just a few companies in Europe that can offer unified engineering, production and assembly for all three structures – glass, steel and concrete. UPB has great engineering power with more than 100 structural engineers. UPB respects its clients and the environment we work with. UPB was established in 1991 and now has more than 1700 employees and more than 62 000 square metres of roofed factories.