Australia's Leading Range of High Performance Aluminium Windows and Doors
Architect
Architect
Architect
There are challenges with almost any building project, but this amazing home, just outside of Newcastle, was a veritable obstacle course. Built on a massive slope and submerged into a cliff face on three sides, it could only be made possible with great design, clever materials choices, and sheer determination!
Originally designed just over 15 years ago for a couple with one child, they soon outgrew the space and, given the difficulty of the site, needed some out-of-the-box thinking to accommodate the family’s expansion.
Wabi-sabi – a Japanese worldview centred on the acceptance of transience and imperfection – and the underlying philosophy behind this intimate and elegant Noosa home. Linda Atkin and Steve Guthrie of Bark Design Architects speak openly about how they addressed the challenge of making a home which is rich in solidity and heaviness seem light and open.
Victoria Reeves of Kennedy Nolan Architects tried to achieve a scale that you wouldn't normally see in a domestic building - to bring a simplicity and abstractness to the project. She achieved just that. The result is a beautiful oasis of light, views and green spaces that perfectly reflects the client’s wishes and Victoria's design.
Anthony Chan of Chan Architecture relays why the Elevate™ system was chosen. Windows needed to be double-glazed because the studio is south-facing and Anthony didn’t want to lose all the heat and the profiles needed to be slim.
Craig Eyles discusses how with large stacking sliding doors you need a large screen to pair with it, when you get up to 6 storeys, you have the high winds that can pull and bend a screen out of shape. AWS went away and redesigned a door to get the screens to slide internally and not compromise the performance of the door.
Jarrad Needham of Ajar Workshop discusses a small, smart, sustainable home in the ACT suburb of Wright. The fundamentals design aspects of the house were efficiency and sustainability - they wanted to experiment with standard materials and see a different way they could work.
Lindsay Douglas of DIG Design created a unique home with a simple box form with curved features. The veranda was a focal point to the design with curved walls which soften the edges. A cavity sliding door fits neatly into the space making it appear larger than it actually is.
Hamilton Hayes Henderson Architects have been college architects for Emmanuel College for 20 years next year. This time, part of the brief was to have this building to redefine the brand of the school.
'Pop out' windows were incorporated into the design to allow for students to have a connection with the outdoors and a little nook where they can sit and have some time out. Giving them the opportunity to interact with the architecture and window design.
Damian Rumball, Project Manager at GEOCON, talks about the tallest residential building in the Canberra region. The vision for Wayfarer was to incorporate all the things we love to live with – sunlight, ventilation and connection to the outdoors. With this in mind, an intricate dance of glass and aluminium was required.
Architect Ben Vitale worked hard to make this project something special, living on the site and completing literally hundreds of sketches before resolving the design for this tranquil, rural home. Lots of consideration was given to the way the home is positioned on the site and the role of windows and doors in maintain thermal comfort.
Resurrected from its previous location in a stuffy hospital basement, Western Sydney University’s Clinical School now stands proudly at the gateway of the university precinct.
Mat Elkan saw the site’s glass panels - weighing a massive 250 kilos each - being lifted in, he had what you might call ‘a moment’. Mat talks about how the four year undertaking was very collaborative with the client.
Like a lot of great ideas, Castles at Kingscliff started over a chat, a beer and a great view. Architect, Scott Carpenter, fondly remembers the day he and his client, Martin, climbed onto the roof of the original dwelling. “We sat there and we looked at the view and he said, ‘This is what I need to get back.’
Architect Colin Irwin had the opportunity to design a house in beautiful Culburra. Sustainability was important to the clients, stressing they did not want the house to have air conditioning. "We have the ability to open up the house as much as we want and, on those odd occasions when there's no breeze at all, we have ceiling fans in every room."
For architect, Sally Wilson, and her husband, renovating their home was a labour of love. Their goal? To give an untouched 100-year-old building – known as Timberland – a new lease of life and make it the home of their dreams.
Architect David Brown and his team faced a huge task when total fire bans were declaired around Adelaide and in other parts of South Australia. David and his team spent a considerable amount of time with local fabricators working out how to get through the bushfire-rating issue.
Since the upgrade, over 55,000 people have passed through the library each month, which is an increase of over 25 per cent. With renewed links to Town Hall and the retail precinct of Bendigo, the library has become a new place for the exchange of ideas and interaction within the community.
This unique home is located in the striking city of Launceston, Tasmania. Designed and built by the talented architect Philip M Dingemanse, the core requirements of this home were to produce a climatically responsive and welcoming family home.
When Kel Greenway of GHP had his daughter and son in law as a client, they were in safe hands. An elegant and simple home that is bringing ongoing day to day enjoyment to its young, growing family, exceeding expectations in blending light and lifestyle into a functional family home.
When the owners of the old Melbourne Hotel in Perth’s CBD decided to give the beautiful heritage building a new lease on life, they were keen to synergise the historical with the modern to create something utterly beautiful and unique. With the help of architect, Lou Cotter, and the experts at AWS, they have achieved just that.
Sustainability principles and simple passive design techniques underpin the environmental performance of this home, as the design incorporates good orientation, sun shading, double glazing, heavy insulation and non-toxic materials combined to provide year round comfort and liveability
Chris Blaber is the owner builder of this project, a modern take on a beach house. With a stringent energy report, Chris was faced with the challenge of not building his windows to their specification. But after speaking to us - design was not compromised and we ticked the boxes of the energy and fire ratings.
Architect Brian Locke gives us a look at a fantastic refurbishment of the heritage listed University of Tasmania, which was originally designed in the early 20th Century. ThermalHEART aluminium windows and doors were utilised due to Tasmania's extreme climate- hot in summer and cold in winter.
Leffler Simes Architects are the team behind North East Water in Wodonga Victoria. It's not a green star building they achieved a 6 star rating in terms of the design performance. Contributing to this was our thermally broken window and door systems to improve energy efficiency and comfort.
A house encompassed by picturesque surroundings in a fantastic location, Architect Andrew Verri was chosen to design a dream home - a farmhouse fit for an entire family. Andrew was faced with the challenge of having a pool inside the house while preventing condensation build up when temperatures differed inside and out. The ThermalHEART range allowed Andrew to incorporate many windows and doors whilst maintaining thermal efficiency throughout the house.
This property is located on a small hill in the Byron Hinterland- which allowed the house to be orientated perfectly for optimal passive design. Part of the brief was that the clients have a significant art and book collection so whilst they wanted a house that had a strong connection to the landscape, they needed wall space in the living area and bedrooms.
On a strong landscape setting, Architect Richard Cole had to design a house which would be responsive to counter the landscape with quite a strong architectural gesture. With a lot to work through, Richard wanted to focus on aluminium to design the house to face a strong climate. Through this at the end of the day they managed to achieve what they set out to do.
Not long ago, you could be forgiven for being unaware of the TAFE campus in Murdoc WA. It was, after all, a fairly non-descript facility, resolutely overshadowed by its near neighbour, Murdoc University. Enter the architects at Armstrong Parkin who have transformed South Metropolitan TAFE into a show-stopping building that has the whole precinct talking.
Mihaly Slocombe Architects had a 'fun' brief - this is for our grandkids, an interesting brief! The outside design is reminiscent of a treehouse and when no one is in the space the whole building can be closed up and could like a shed (a very decorated shed) to an onlooker, something that is not inhabitable. They describe Kids Pod as their most experimental project where external screens act as shutters over the windows.
The house has been designed as an ‘armature’ for a young growing family to live and evolve, offering a variety of open living and private retreat spaces. Family accommodation is contained within a simple two storey volume that gently terraces down the site thereby opening up internally to a voluminous open living space under the canopy of the Scribbly Gums.
Architect Kieron Gait, Kieron Gait Architects; talks about this simple, modest extension in Red Hill, Brisbane, redefining the way building materials are utilised within a home. The construction utilises a modular structural insulated panel system (SIPS) to reduce construction time and allow economy of site labour.
The Dawes Residence is located in the city of Canberra, which is typically known for its hot summers and cold winters. Architect Tony Trobe worked on a strict brief to maximise views of the client's surrounds as well as ensure there were connections between the indoors and outdoors without compromising the thermal efficiency of the home.
The owners wanted a house to fit 3 generations and a couple businesses. See how Matt Thitchener designed the home to meet environmental and lifestyle needs.
Owner/Builder Simon Williams walks us through his beautiful Canobolas House in Orange NSW.
To attract as much warm sunshine into the home as possible, owner/builder, Michael Paddison, oriented most of the house to the north and made windows a key focus of his design.
Architect Tina Tziallas from Tziallas O' Meara Architecture studio talks about Bundaroo Street House. Tina describes how this dynamic project gave the design team many challenges. Each time one was resolved it left the design felling so much better for it. The project became an interesting exercise in how to maximise the performance of the house to ensure exceptional energy efficiency. Thermally broken windows and doors from the Vantage® ThermalHEART™ range are used throughout, allowing Tina to achieve the design resolution she desired for her clients without compromising on the efficiency and comfort of the living space created.
Building Designer Mike Cleaver is an absolute advocate of AWS. Mike loves the ability to mix and match AWS suites in a custom built project like this.
Built under the Green Star program, architect Paul Godsell was appointed with the significant task of designing a sustainable, practical and memorable architectural work. Built with a refuced 'ecological footprint', the result is a building with a remarkably low energy demand for heating, cooling and lighting.
Given two seperate clients with seperate requirements, architect Mark Broadley accomodated to both needs while remaining balanced and fitting in with the overall look. Mark incorporated as many environmentally sustainable inclusions as possible including cross ventialation to help build on the elegance of the project.
This sleek, architecturally designed home is located in Rosebud, a seaside town on the Mornington Peninsula, Victoria. The project started out as a replacement building for fibro shack, which has grown into an architecturally inspired, carefully designed home. James Goodlet of Altereco Design was chosen to ensure the clients dream home came to life. The home�s main design focus is on high ceilings and large scale glazing which in turn gives the home a sense of openness.
Prior to renovation, these two townhouses were original Spanish mission style homes. When Architect Robert Davidov was given the task of designing the renovations for these two homes, his main priorities were to bring in some of the fixtures and form of the previous site into the new buildings and to utilise high performance, energy efficient products.
Situated 320 meters above sea level this 5 hectare lot was to be shared in harmony with the wedge tailed eagle's nest therefore minimal disturbance to the lot was a priority. The sitting utilises the natural land knoll in tandem with the curvaceous roof form to deflect the prevailing south westerly winds and provide a sheltered micro climate for the immediate external zoned living areas.
This magnificent home is located in the regional Victorian town of Bendigo. Owner / Builder and Architect Lucas Hodgens had big dreams for this home. Lucas believed that "The house changed not only my life for the better, it has certainly changed my children's and wife's life also." The design and build of this open plan home was a lifelong dream of Lucas - to design and build his very own family home.
This spectacular Warrnambool home sits perched high above the Hopkins River. The simple clean design, expansive use of glazing and innovative selection of products offer an uncomplicated and elegant living space for it's owners.
Located in one of the Illawarra's premier beachside suburbs and sitting on the headland of Austinmer Beach is this amazing, curved, elongated home perched on concrete columns. The requirements for the design of this home were strict, the owners needed a home that was appropriate to raise a young family, yet could also be transformed instantaneously into a place suitable for entertaining.