A new commercial building acknowledges and celebrating the original shoreline of Auckland, a key link between the upper city and the waterfront. FORMiS designed the Te Aukati buildings to accommodate several commercial tenancies, connecting them through a broad internal promenade.
The product needed to be secure and long-lasting, and also look like real timber. UltraBatten, which is an extruded aluminium profile, is attached with concealed fixings, it can be anodised or powder-coated into almost infinite colours.
“In this case it was powder coated and it has a sublimated woodgrain finish from Metwood so it looks a lot like wood.”
The sublimated pattern on the aluminium is varied, so that it doesn’t appear to have repeating patterns, making it far more realistic than some other products.
Because UltraBatten is aluminium it’s less prone to degradation over the long term and is also in line with the sustainability goals of the project.
Woodgrain Sublimation
The woodgrain sublimation used for this project is well varied to ensure that your eye does not pick up consistent patterns, adding to the genuine look of the product.
Lighting Incorporated
Lighting was worked in within the battens, creating a very clean facade.
Vulcan distributes engineering and stainless steel, processed plate and coil, from 29 sites throughout Australasia. Founded by Peter Wells with a clear vision – to become the most customer-focused and efficient metals distributor in Australasia, by delivering superior service, we have grown consistently ever since.
Since Vulcan was founded in 1995, we have become Australasia’s highest performing metals distributor and processor. Our sustained growth is the product of superior service and dedication to continuously improving to every facet of our business.
We began by distributing carbon steel and steadily widened our portfolio to include plate processing, coil processing, stainless steel and engineering steels.
Today the diversity of products we offer, and the geographic spread of our operations means Vulcan has become a key supplier to the Australasian economy. We have 69 warehousing, manufacturing, and processing facilities throughout Australia and New Zealand, employing over ~1300 staff, across six business divisions.
We have achieved this exceptional coverage by a combination of organic growth and acquiring existing businesses.
To ensure the company continues to succeed in the future we will continue to focus on improving the things that really matter – inventory, quality, people, and of course service. We have the management team, the motivated workforce, the infrastructure, and the ambition to keep at the forefront of the steel industry for the next 25 years and beyond.