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1 July 2016   |   Announcements

Fletcher Aluminium wins at WANZ awards night

The inaugural WANZ Awards were held on 17 June at the Crown Plaza in Auckland.

Fletcher Aluminium’s products and people won multiple awards across several categories including:

  • Fletcher Aluminium franchise brand, Vistalite Otago and Viridian Glass – Supreme joint winners of the ‘Design Project’ of the Year (all categories) for the Remarkables ski field’s base building. Vistalite Otago with this project also won the ‘Commercial Design Flair’ category.
  • Fletcher Window & Door Systems and Dulux – Joint winners of the ‘Powdercoating Project’ of the Year – Remarkables ski field’s base building (pictured).
  • Fletcher Window & Door Systems and Stafford Hardware – Joint winners of the ‘Components Innovation’ of the Year for the Smartfit® component range.
  • Liam Madden from Fletcher Aluminium franchise brand, Fisher Canterbury – Won ‘Apprentice of the Year’ National Certificate of Architectural Aluminium Windows.
  • Fletcher Aluminium franchise brands; Vistalite Invercargill, Rylock Otago, Vistalite Otago and Vistalite Canterbury were all finalists in various design project categories.

Fletcher Aluminium prides itself on striving for excellence and working collaboratively with its people, franchisees, suppliers and customers to achieve the best possible project outcomes. We are extremely proud of the supreme winning entry by Vistalite Otago for the Remarkables ski field’s base building.

Michael Brenssell of Vistalite Otago said “This project was challenging, complex and exhilarating all at the same time!” 

The functional requirements of the brief were for a new Remarkables base building. Consisting of; office space, ticketing, rental area, cafeteria and crèche. 

The technical requirements were for a seismic 160mm thermal curtain wall system. The system had to meet extreme wind loads and weather conditions. Antje Linow of Fletcher Aluminium designed bespoke project specific extrusion and meticulously detailed all complex junctions. She also worked collaboratively with Vistalite Otago and the project engineers to ensure all aspects were accurate and true. But the ethereal requirements were so much more. The building was to be a monument possessing an almost sculptural like architectural aesthetic. The volumetric void within the building provided scale and grandeur while also capturing the breath-taking mountain views beyond. Finally the vertex reaching for the heavens was the pièce de résistance.

But to achieve these ethereal feats there were many challenges along the way, including;

  • Providing full shop drawings just in time for metal ordering
  • Metal arriving just in time for manufacture
  • Construction delays due to bad weather
  • Working in sub-zero conditions on scissor lifts and snorkel booms
  • Having to continually fit chains to vehicles to get up and down the mountain.

Fletcher Aluminium truly delivered on their part of the project. There was not a single piece of replacement metal required from nine tonnes of aluminium which consisted of 1,220 lengths of various extrusion shapes and sizes. The lineal metres delivered were more than the length of 63 rugby fields!

The Fletcher Aluminium extrusion team did a brilliant job and the powdercoat team were rewarded with the WANZ ‘Powdercoating Project’ of the year.