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2024 Highlights
Pictured are Kris Bennell, President of the association and Contracts Director of Associated Steel Window Services and Darren Lloyd, Vice President of the association and Managing Director of Govette Windows.
The winners of the inaugural Steel Window Association (SWA) Awards have been announced at a ceremony in County Hall, London. These new awards have been created to highlight impressive residential and commercial projects which incorporate steel windows, doors and screens. The members of the SWA comprise the very best companies in the industry and they assembled to celebrate their achievements, old and new.
Kris Bennell, President of the SWA, started proceedings with a short speech before handing over to John Ramshaw, Technical Editor of Architecture Today, the awards judge, who announced the winners of the Best Domestic and Best Commercial Projects and an Associated member award.
Pictured are John Ramshaw, Technical Editor of Architecture Today and Darren Lloyd, Managing Director of Govette Windows and winner of Best Domestic Project.
Govette Windows won Best Domestic Project for a house extension in Weybridge, Surrey. “This project impressed in terms of its architectural response – the fenestration perfectly complements the building’s brick and metal skin, while also letting in daylight and prompting views out in all the right places. It also hints at a bygone industrial age, that seems to suit the style of the existing Edwardian house.” John Ramshaw.
Pictured are John Ramshaw and Andy Bawn, Managing Director of West Leigh and winner of Best Commercial Project.
West Leigh won Best Commercial Project with the Voysey House, a project which demonstrated what can be achieved when a committed client and a highly knowledgeable and experienced window manufacturer work together. The overall result is stunning, with West Leigh playing a crucial role in returning an architecturally significant building back to its original aesthetic, while providing modern levels of performance.” John Ramshaw.
Pictured are John Ramshaw and James Barrett, Managing Director of Steel Window Fittings and winner of the Associated Award.
Steel Window Fittings was presented with the Associated Award as the company’s ironmongery was used in both the winning Best Domestic Project and the Best Commercial Project.
Kris Bennell, President of the SWA comments, “It has been great to highlight the winning projects and see the members being presented with a well-deserved award. This event has also provided us all with a fantastic opportunity to network with our industry peers and hear everyone’s thoughts on the industry – we are all predicting a booming year next year. We hope to have another successful awards event in 2025 where we expect even more entries from our members!”
There will be further media material developed on the winning projects which will go into more detail.
For further information on the Steel Window Association or if you’re interested in becoming a member, please click here
Winners
Weybridge, Surrey
Govette Windows Ltd are proud to have completed this project in conjunction with the client Sarah Stirrett and the builder Kantec.
Concept One Architects were appointed by Sarah to provide the design brief. We liaised with them to understand the clients priorities for this project. It became apparent that Sarah wanted large door and window screens that had a design identity that complemented the original houses large sash windows.
We therefore offered our W20 steel door screens as they have the slimmest profiles available with 28 mm wide true glazing bars, each pane of glass is a separate double glazed unit. This system is BFRC registered ‘B’ energy rated and is double rebated with dual weatherstripping. Hot dip galvanising ensures maximum weather protection.
Sarah was concerned about the frame colour choice and how it melded with the external brick colour. Luckily Sarah had visited our Instagram page and found a project where we had used a powder coat finish called Pearl Beige RAL 1035 matt which she liked. The paint has a slight pearlescent finish and so makes the colour appear different in certain natural light conditions. The door handles and window ironmongery supplied by SWA member Steel Window Fittings Ltd was also powder coated to this colour.
Originally Sarah had also enquired about an internal double door screen with hinged swing doors but then decided that this would have been obtrusive due to the rooms furniture layout. We therefore manufactured and installed an internal steel sliding double door screen which allowed maximum floor space, allowed natural ligt to flow through from the outise in and complemented the external screens.
Sarah said…’This was something I’ always wanted to do, because I think steel framed windows just have that timeless, industrial appearance and would really suit the style of our old Edwardian house…’
Voysey House – Victorian Wallpaper Factory
Our client had purchased a Victorian wallpaper factory in West London. The building had been already refurbished in the 1980s and W20 steel windows had been installed. But the steel windows fitted, removed the small pane design, and reverted to large panes and panelled all the curved heads. Returning the windows back to their original cast iron construction and at the same time improved the U value performance of the product.
We initially offered a W20 section frame in small panes which is a common product for this type of building. But the client felt this was not sympathetic enough, with this in mind we needed a more radicle approach, we found a rarely used arrow section Series 200 still rolled which mimicked cast iron. But a regular heritage double glazed unit would be too large for the rebate, so we sourced a new product to the UK Fineo double glazed unit, which provided a front to back sized unit of 8mm but more importantly the sight line of only 6mm. The combination of these two materials provided a great finished result.
We provided samples and design information, then quickly moved to manufacture in our London factory and in December 2023 we were very proud to deliver the finished product to our client.
Finishing with a big thank you to all the West Leigh team who worked on the Voysey House project. From the factory visits to discussions on site, the team were clear and knowledgeable in what they were delivering, and the finished product has helped transform the building.
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