International design award for the Indemann

Award presented to GKD at ceremony in Washington, D.C.

By winning the Merit Award of the Society for Environmental Graphic Design (SEGD), the Indemann Observation Tower has now demonstrated its brilliance on an international stage. The 36 metre (118 feet) high accessible steel sculpture, which resembles a primitive robot, was erected in the autumn of 2009 on a brown coal waste tip in Inden/Germany as a symbol of the structural evolution of this former mining region. While the size and shape of the Indemann is impressive, it is its semitransparent skin of stainless steel mesh with integrated LED profiles that attracts thousands of visitors every week. At night a spectacular computer-controlled light show brings the steel colossus to life. The platform for this spectacle is the Illumesh^® system, a cooperative development of GKD – Gebr. Kufferath AG, Düren, and ag4 media facade GmbH, Cologne. The global patent is held jointly by the two companies. The SEGD Design Award celebrates outstanding creations in the fields of environmental graphic design and was presented on June 5th in Washington, D.C.