What’s new?

Kawneer

Kawneer has now introduced as standard what was once a custom system for a project with widely spaced columns that demanded curtain walling that could accommodate large panes of glass and greater floor slab movement. The company’s 1612 zone-drained curtain walling system has a 63.5mm box design that can handle high load deflections without additional profiles, and a 26mm glass rebate to take larger pane sizes. Based on Kawneer’s 1202 system, the 1612 accepts windows between 4mm and 37mm thick, offers slim sightlines, and is available in 130 standard and 31 metallic finishes.

Eternit

Eternit has added 12 wood styles to its Lamina External range of laminate rainscreen panels. Coloured on both sides and with colour-matched or concealed fixings, the panels have a 10-year colour guarantee. Eternit says the panels are light, easy to fix and cut, and resistant to UV light, the weather, impact, pollution and mould, and claim a life expectancy of 40 years.

Raico

German company Raico has launched Thermplus timber-framed curtain walling. Available in structural veneer pine or beech, the transoms and mullions have a profile width of 50mm or 57mm, and are available in six depths and three lengths. Press and cover plates come in aluminium or stainless steel and are offset 4mm from the glazing, which can be between 10 and 52mm thick. The exterior gasket unites sealing and insulation (with an adjustable U-value between 1.8 and 1.2) in one unit. Also available as aluminium framing, all Thermplus components – whether timber or metal – are fully interchangeable.

Corus

Corus Colors has added photo-realistic 3D images of office, retail, industrial and stadia cladding projects to its Repertoire colour-matching and visualisation web tool. Developed two years ago for the company’s HPS2000 prepainted steel cladding, Repertoire (available at colorcoat-online.com/repertoire) now also supports RAL colours and bespoke colours as well as different cladding profile types. The company has also added Artemis and Helios to its Celestia range to reproduce the colour and effect of weathered steel without the uneven weathering and runoff experienced with Cor-Ten cladding. Celestia also lacks the design peculiarities that make installing Cor-Ten such a complex affair.

Pilkington

Pilkington has introduced a blast-proof version of its Planar glazing system. Supported only at the corners, the structurally bolted glass panels are more effective than framed glazing at deflecting and absorbing the energy generated by a bomb.

Pieri

Pieri has launched a vast range of textured decorative finishes for in situ or precast concrete. Single-use polystyrene Pieri AGP Formliners offer 74 different patterns, and 14 of the designs are available in flexible elastomeric polyurethane forms that can be reused up to 100 times depending on site conditions and the care modules are given.

Halfen

Lutz flexible fixings for supporting natural stone cladding are now available in the UK from Halfen. The body anchors can be site-drilled to concrete, and have three-way adjustable supports. Restraint anchors can be adjusted within the drill hole and give full load-bearing capacity at any angle. The range also consists of sub-structures for easy fixing of rainscreen cladding to large and multiform cavities.

Trespa

‘Natural chaos’ is the theme of a range of flat exterior cladding panels from Trespa. Each Meteon Original panel has a special flowing surface structure, giving a facade whose light and shadow changes according to the viewer’s position. Trespa has also launched a Natural Prints range, which reproduces the colours and effects of wood. Like Meteon Originals, Natural Prints panels are 70% softwood fibre and 30% thermoset resin. Trespa claims the panels are unaffected by sun, rain or moisture, with the non-porous surface preventing build-up of dirt.

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