Our History

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IKU® intelligente Fenstersysteme AG (IKU Intellegent Window Systems AG, Vienna) was created in 1999 to market and sell products under the brand name IKU®windows.

These several times awarded facade systems solve many problems, initially conceived for “dirty glass facades” for high-rise buildings, have received an extremely positive response from planners, architects and contractors globally. As a result, IKU® Intelligente Fenstersysteme AG protected its innovative system through worldwide patents which were licensed out globally.

The inventor, Julius Thurnher, at all times continued to further develop the systems and the relevant technologies. The fires in ‘The Address’, ‘The Torch’ in Dubai and the ‘Grenfell Tower’ in London, causing high death tolls, made it clear that the time was ripe for launching the new technology for fire suppression on high rise towers. These three harmful and major events finally led to the decision to a restructuring of the business model in 2017.

The company and the product range had expanded over the years offering façade types with integrated self-cleaning together with IKU®windows Maintenance & Evacuation units, and since 2017 the technology had been further developed to offer a fire-suppression technology for high rise buildings. The new technology was successfully tested in the Dubai based test facility.

‘Thomas Bell Wright” in 2017 and is now in the process of certification with Civil Defense in Dubai.

All research and testing were financed by a private initiative which ultimately resulted in the creation of IKU Firetech Solutions Ltd in 2020. IKU Firetech Solutions Ltd has acquired the worldwide patents and licenses for all the IKU Systems.

The IKU systems are based on a system of sliding sealed units, featuring self-cleaning glass and fire suppression with integration into an automated building system, and represent a milestone in window and fire suppression technology. The combination of the various technologies is a guarantee for secure maintenance work in the façade and evacuation of people in case of disaster and now also offer protection for the tenants by suppressing the rapid spread of fire via the facades. The system has been developed to be retrofit on any building which allows time and cost-efficient adjustments for the purpose of fire suppression.

The application of the fire suppression system on existing buildings offers an immediate and efficient solution for the potential threat of events like ‘Grenfell Tower’in the UK, endangering human lives as well as potential loss of property.

The IKU®windows fire suppression system enables zero response time in dealing with fires in any building especially in high rise towers both as a standalone system or integrated in the façade cleaning system equally.