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In the heart of the German city, a spectacular Daniel Libeskind architectural project has become one of the newest focal points of the urban landscape.

The successful collaboration between Casalgrande Padana and Daniel Libeskind continues with an important new creation in Berlin: the Sapphire is a new residential complex which – as well as clearly bearing the hallmarks of Libeskind’s distinctive style – represents a challenge from both a construction and technological standpoint, underlining the symbiotic relationship between architecture and construction.

Sapphire is a multi-storey building characterised by a particularly complex shape which seems to deft the entire Cartesian coordinate system and the laws of gravity themselves, in true Libeskind fashion.

Like a sapphire, the building is a sturdy, multi-sided thing, gleaming as it emerges from the cityscape. The colour of the ceramic covering even evokes the azure blue that corundum gives the precious stone itself.

It is a skin of porcelain stoneware with a 3D surface. These tiles belong to the Fractile line, designed by Libeskind himself, and are exclusively produced by Casalgrande Padana. Over 3600 ceramic pieces were used for the cladding, with upwards of 3100 of these cut to measure in order to fit the complex geometry of the design down to the millimetre. The cladding is supported by a highly energy efficient ventilated façade system developed by Padana Engineering, the department of Casalgrande Padana focusing solely on this type of complex project.