The cladding of the award-winning Danish incinerator Amager Bakke, the multifunctional arena in Paris, the Louis Vuitton building or the facade for the KKCG group in Prague’s Bořislavka. The portfolio of orders of the Czech company Sipral includes a plethora of attractive projects and now others will be added to it. The company won a billion-dollar contract at the Wood Wharf complex in London.
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“It’s a contract in the order of over a billion for an apartment building. So it is residential housing, actually two apartment towers, “says the owner of Sipral Leopold Bareš, adding that it is a prefabricated modular facade of 70 percent glazed and 30 percent opaque. During the production, special paints and varnishes are used, which resemble wood, and will therefore intentionally easily change their color.
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The whole project should be completed in the middle of 2025.
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We have a contract, we are not interested in the price increase
Although war and inflation have not yet been reflected in the long-term projects of foreign investors, according to Bareš, the current time is challenging for the company. “We have doubled our energy, we have paid 10 million, now we are paying 20,” says Bareš, adding that the situation in materials is even worse – they are not only more expensive, but mainly not.
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“Prices for aluminum are doubled, steel has up to three times the prices, we try to plan for a longer period of time, but at critical moments we buy what is for a given price,” adds Bareš, adding that all this speaks significantly into already concluded orders.
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Deadlines are being postponed and projects that have been worked on for months or years are being created at a completely different price than they were contracted. And it is often very difficult to change already concluded contracts due to extreme costs.
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“It’s complicated, it depends on the type of customer. Many of them approach the fact that we have a fixed price and they are not interested in our problem, “Bareš explains, adding that at the turn of 2021 and 2022 the company even dropped out of five tenders because it was not willing to guarantee a fixed price.
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The glass facade is no longer sexy
However, according to Bareš, it is not yet clear that companies will start saving due to the situation. It is too short time to influence large projects. At the moment, the company is working not only on a new London contract, but the company’s production plant is also creating a long-awaited cladding for Masaryk – the last work, under which the world-famous architect Zaha Hadid is signed.
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“The time is coming when all-glass coats are no longer sexy. Now comes the time when the ratio of glazed and non-glazed parts changes. Visually, it only looks more economical. There is also an increasing emphasis on CO2. All the projects we offer in London today must be assessed from this point of view as well, ”adds Bareš.
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Sipral is not the only company that is doing well abroad now. The Lasvit glassworks has built a glass ice corridor for the Cartier boutique in Geneva and created a light installation for the hotel in Jakarta that responds to music, while 2N delivers smart bells to buildings in New Cairo, a city about 50 kilometers from present-day Cairo. other Egyptian ministries.
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