Case studies

Glass façades with large opening widths in the BMW Munich dealership

'Fascination car' as an entire concept: There has long been an expectation that car showrooms should reflect the prestige of the make. This has certainly been achieved in the modernised BMW dealership in Munich, with its impressive glass façades - featuring spacious automatic doors by GEZE.

Function and design in accordance with BMW brand architecture

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.

Slimline and efficient: Automatic doors by GEZE

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.

A telescopic door for maximum opening widths

GEZE telescopic door in the glass façade of the BMW Munich dealership. Photo: GEZE GmbH

The GEZE telescopic door offers maximum opening widths and fits aesthetically into the glass façade. © GEZE GmbH

In normal circumstances, the size and opening widths of automatic doors are restricted by the weight of the leaves and length of the aluminium sections used.

With the tailor-made solution for the glass façades of the BMW dealership, GEZE was able to prove its skills as an international automatic door specialist: the automatic telescopic door system, with efficient drive technology in a sleek 7 cm design and an opening width of 380 cm are the perfect combination of functionality and design, and fits aesthetically perfectly into the building architecture.

Synchronisation ensures functional door convenience

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.

Smart sliding door systems: the GEZE Slimdrive drive

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

GEZE products in the BMW Munich branch

  • GEZE Slimdrive drive
  • telescopic doors