Jewers Doors Compliment Architectural Themes
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Jewers Doors have recently completed the installation of seven Osprey multi-leaf sliding folding doors to complete the conversion of an old dilapidated dairy factory in Camberwell, London into a series of studios, workshops and galleries for internationally acclaimed artist and sculptor Sir Anish Kapoor.
In a project spanning five years, Casey Fierro Architects masterminded the renovation of the buildings without disturbing the day-to-day workings of the Turner prize-winning artist, whose most-famous works include the bean-shaped sculpture in Chicago’s Millennium Park.
“The doors needed to be incredibly robust to provide a calm, internal world, free from external distraction.” said Michael Casey, partner in the architecture practice. “Flexibility and ease of operation were key factors. The doors had to be flexible enough to open fully to accommodate some of the very large pieces of sculpture for which Anish is renowned, but also open partially for smaller works thus minimising heat loss from the building.”
Environmentally compassionate
Jewers supplied manually operated Osprey sliding, folding doors in four and five leaf configurations. Manufactured as a single piece construction, each of the door panels is fully insulated with environmentally friendly insulation materials which optimise thermal efficiency and reduce noise pollution by 25dB. The doors incorporate soft compound weather seals to all edges, which also protect against finger and toe trapping. Some of the doors are fitted with louvres to provide ventilation when resins or other hazardous materials are used in the creation of the sculptures.
In the closed position the doors are secured by internal, full-height lockable espagnolette bolts, which engage into the bottom and top track. A lever handle withdraws the bolts to enable door leaves to be easily pushed aside to allow full width entry. For the five leaf doors, the end panel acts as a full height pass door avoiding the need to open the door fully.
The hard wearing powder coated finish to the doors minimises maintenance and provides a discrete presence from the street, yet compliments the contemporary interior style of the studios.
Safety Conscious
Working with Walters and Cohen Architects, Jewers Doors have also installed two ‘thresholdless’ versions of their Kingfisher sliding door system in Boathouse 4 at Portsmouth’s Historic Dockyard. The doors were purpose designed to ensure trip-free access between workshops and formed part of a £3.5 million restoration programme recently completed by Interserve.
Boathouse 4 was originally built during WWII and was one of only two locations where specialist assault and infantry landing craft were manufactured in preparation for the D-Day landings. The restored building is now home to the International Boatbuilding Training College (IBTC) and a fully functional Boatbuilding Skills Training Centre, where traditional boatbuilding and related skills required to conserve wooden boats are taught.
Sympathetic design
Kirsten Holland of Walters and Cohen Architects commented, “Boathouse 4 is an important historic building and we felt the aesthetics of straight sliding doors between the workshops would be more sympathetic to the design and help maintain the classic industrial feel to the structure. As this will be a very active centre building and restoring large boats, it was important that once the doors were slid back, there would be no obstruction to the movement of large, heavy boats or materials. We approached Jewers Doors who were very helpful and were prepared to put in the time to design a customised door that fully met the demanding specification of this unusual building.”
Each Kingfisher straight-sliding doors is in a single, top-hung leaf, hanging from Jewers own pendant hanger and top track system, but instead of incorporating bottom tracks within the floor, surface mounted torpedo guides are used to stabilise the doors. These are situated behind the adjoining walls to ensure unrestricted access between the workshops. An integral wicket door allows staff and students access between the workshops when the main sliding door is closed, and this has also been designed without a bottom threshold to eliminate any trip hazard.
In addition to custom bespoke doors, the name Jewers is world renowned for superior industrial sliding folding door solutions. Jewers Doors manufacture the world renowned Esavian aircraft hangar doors and the Phoenix industrial sliding and folding door range, providing a complete service from design and manufacture to installation with civil works, maintenance, servicing and repair.
Contact details:
Mark Jewers
Jewers Doors Ltd
Stratton Business Park
Biggleswade
Bedfordshire
SG18 8QB
Tel: 01767 317090
www.jewersdoors.co.uk
mjewers@jewersdoors.co.uk
