Heritage style, inside & out
Ash Pearson, sales manager at Jack Aluminium, talks about ID30, the latest addition to the specialist aluminium systems supplier’s range for the domestic market.
For domestic aluminium glazing systems, heritage style is almost becoming the new standard, with the demand for ever-slimmer sightlines and beautiful aesthetics as well as high-performing thermal efficiency and security at the top of the agenda for many aluminium window and door fabricators and installers.
It is, of course, driven by the interior design and consumer market. Go to any home design show or flick through any interiors magazine and you’ll notice the steel-look style being used for anything from room dividers and lobby entrances to shower screens and kitchen designs.
The demand for the right aesthetics for a home is not new, but there is a greater onus on the finer details these days. Windows, doors and glazing aesthetics are becoming just as important as that of the new corner sofa unit, a kitchen cabinet or bathroom tile.
If you can’t provide the right, contemporary aesthetic for today’s homeowner, it can mean that the job is lost.
Products for the market
Our ethos has always been a simple one – listen to our customers, to understand what they need from our products and then design a system that’s fit to deliver it, that’s always straightforward to fabricate and install – that’s no different with our domestic products.
Starting with the TRL90 flat rooflight and TW70 window, a hybrid product that could be used on both residential and commercial projects, we saw there was a real appetite for an alternative domestic aluminium range with our level of service.
It has grown from there and our TruEnergy domestic aluminium range now features SW60, the slimline aluminium window, RD70 residential door and SD70, the slimline, heritage flush door.
SD70 TruEnergy doors provide the ideal solution for homeowners looking to create an art-deco or industrial style on their external doors or on specialist projects where there is a requirement for replica slimline doors.
The 70mm door system is engineered to suite with the rest of our TruEnergy domestic glazing range and is the perfect companion to SW60 windows, for projects that specify super-slim sightlines to replicate old steel-look windows with a flush finish alongside high thermal performance and security.
We’ve had nothing but good feedback from customers and in particular, our slimline, heritage-style window and door system has meant that many businesses who we haven’t dealt with before are starting to see us in a new light.
Jack Aluminium was born as a commercial aluminium specialist, and working in the commercial world has pushed us to deliver a better, faster and more friendly service to customers than they were used to.
We offer value-engineered, high-performance products, with extensive technical support and fast turnarounds, which we’re now replicating with the supply of our domestic aluminium range.
A new market
There is increasing demand for room dividers, screens and doors that separate spaces, maintain high-levels of natural light and offer the ever-popular Art-Deco or Industrial styling, with a contemporary twist.
From conversations with customers and tracking trends, we could see that there was an opportunity to create a purpose designed internal glazing system. Not one that had been adapted from an external product, but a properly engineered door and screen, specifically designed for internal doors and partitions.
ID30 is the result of months of development, testing and adjustments so that we could create one internal system that could be used for a full range of door opening designs. ID30 offers incredible flexibility when it comes to design and the same profile can be used to fabricate single or double hinged doors, sliding doors, pivot doors and bi-folding doors.
There’s no extra bulk, or clunkiness, which often comes with an external system ‘trying to make it on the inside’, or with the more traditional heritage systems.
The lock is housed within the slim door stile, using specially designed mounting kits which include clever 3D-printed componentry. All hinges are concealed, for an incredibly sleek finish – that’s perfect for delivering this contemporary aesthetic.
Though ID30 is ideal for commercial applications – for office partitions, artists’ studios and the like, where we’re really seeing popularity is in highly-modern homes where ‘broken plan’ is the new open-plan. Internal screens are being used to ‘zone’ living areas, create vestibules, separate open-plan kitchen-diners, or simply to replace traditional timber internal doorsets.
ID30 is fast to fabricate and easy to install – just as you’d expect from Jack Aluminium. We’ve done everything we can to make ID30 an easy add-on product to open doors into the internal commercial fit-out market and to help installers win more work from domestic projects.
It’s the perfect complementary product to SD70 slimline external doors, so homeowners can get heritage styling – inside and out.
ID30 In Action
Art centre refurbishment
ID30 internal glazing was used to create a range of internal partitions and section off studio areas at ArtCore, a renowned Arts Centre in Derby.
The sleek and non-intrusive glazing maintains the open, collaborative feel of the room and allows the building to be flooded with natural light, which is hugely important for any art space.
Office partitions
A fixed glazed screen with pivot door provided the ideal method to separate the main meeting room from the kitchen and breakout area at the Balls2 Marketing offices.
The screen helps to maintain privacy without losing natural light, giving the feeling of space while making a real architectural statement. The heritage, steel-look styling is perfectly in sync with this busy office environment.