The Shade Factor team approaches sun shading from a unique perspective, bringing together decades of experience and expertise to work hand-in-hand with our architect, engineer and designer clients.
Shade Factor works from first principles to understand the complex needs of architectural design, and apply rigorous thinking to develop big ideas, listen and understand to realise a vision.
Shade Factor has a large amount of experience and a talented design eye. Their team has proven architectural and engineering skills focused on high-level solutions. They design from the ground up, sketching and drawing, with a design that is then developed and implemented into a factory process. By thinking critically about what our customers are trying to achieve, we ensure that good concepts become good products perfectly implemented in a project’s building fabric.
With Shadefactor, you are in good hands and can be sure you are making the right choice.
Shade Factor’s relationship with Warema
Shade Factor is proud to work with one of the largest blind companies in the world – the Warema Group. Steeped in the tradition of specialised family businesses started in small Bavarian towns, Warema is a proud and passionate family-held business with more than 60 years’ experience. Warema is renowned worldwide as the industry leader in technically advanced sun shading.
Employing around 4800 staff – many from the small town in Germany where they are still based – Warema produces 3000 external venetians blinds every day. The company remains family-run with high standards of German technology excellence.
Shade Factor’s relationship with Warema began in 1998, to procure a product for a customer that was more specialised than the Australian market could offer. From this, a longstanding partnership developed.
Warema was known to be far ahead in terms of the innovation, approach, and production. Shade Factor began to work collaboratively with Warema’s engineers, designers and production teams to source premium products that are recognised internationally.
Consequently, Shade Factor could offer more variants of products that were on the periphery in Australia, and that led to more complex projects, buildings and technology in ways that were not generally available elsewhere. Today, Warema is an extension of our own team; technically rich, and highly supportive.
High-Performance Products
The requirements of the Australian market and the ever-increasing demand for sustainable sun shading products have increased significantly and Shade Factor is in a great position to continue to offer more tailored solutions for a range of design requirements.
Shade Factor has provided shade engineering for many iconic projects over the life of the company. This includes trapezoidal blinds for the famous and controversial shard of Federation Square, to a myriad of complex shapes tailored to the façade geometry in John Wardle Architects’ innovative tower in the Sydney CBD.
At the iconic Sixty Martin Place project in central Sydney, we partnered with Lendlease and Hassell architects to supply 2800 blinds over 31 levels driven by a Warema KNX control system.
These high-performance products carefully balance the panoramic views of Sydney Harbour with the thermal performance requirements of the façade. Shae Factor is proud that our response was a major contributor to the achievement of a highly energy-efficient six-star Green Star rating for the project.
Design Expertise
Projects like these two don’t simply materialise out of thin air – they are the result of our hard work and the relevant industry expertise. These projects are perfect examples of what Shade Factor does best – creative problem-solving and producing high-quality products. Across the entire team, Shade Factor gets a real thrill from testing and solving complex problems, and then using their engineering know-how and First Principles design to create the best technical solution.
From sketching designs by hand to providing rich documentation, Shade Factor is a team of passionate people that loves ideas and creative purpose. By providing a holistic approach, they don’t simply sell blinds, they sell value with a better solution.
Regardless of the client, Shade Factor’s approach is the same. They listen, learn and become an extension of their customer, and then apply the practical skill to problem-solving. Shade Factor believes this is the only way to offer a completely unique solution that reflects all considerations and requirements – regardless of scale, size and building type.
A Great Future
Shade Factor is at the forefront of a growing industry both globally and locally. They are thrilled to see the building energy performance increase in line with international commitments to address climate change.
Increased demands on energy efficiency mean more opportunities to innovate and experiment with our products in concert with better window products, better control systems and higher performance elements within many components of the building envelope. Shade Factor is proud to be a leading contributor to the buildings of the future.
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