Door Industry Journal - Winter 2016

Also online at: www.dijonline.co.uk Opening the Doors to an Iconic Landmark They call it the vertical pier: the British Airways i360 in Brighton is a jaw-dropping new landmark that combines contemporary glamour with a seaside legacy. And GEZE UK is helping open the doors for millions of visitors to head skywards for views of an incredible coastline. The unique visitor attraction, with its slender 530ft tower and glass viewing pod offering 360-degree vistas, opened this summer. Beneath it lies the Beach Building, housing the attraction’s flexible event space, shop and restaurant. It’s here, within a dramatic glass façade, that six pairs of sliding doors provide access to the venue, powered by GEZE’s Slimdrive SL NT single operators. Their slim design and a drive unit height of just 7cm makes Slimdrive SL NT operators almost invisible in elevation, ideally complementing the aesthetic of the glazed frontage. Designed to be virtually silent in operation, the Slimdrive SL NT provides safe and easy access in high traffic areas and was considered the perfect solution by Fill Metalbau, an Austrian specialist company tasked with developing the building envelope in steel and glass. In defining the right doors for the Beach Building, the company had two key issues in mind: they would need to be robust and resilient. British Airways i360’s beach front location meant that they would need to battle the elements. The force of potentially strong winds made the use of swing doors impractical which meant that automatic sliding doors were the obvious choice. They also needed to be rigorous in performance with high visitor numbers expected. Slimdrive SL NT operators have a proven track record of outstanding performance; in TUV test cycles, their endurance is measured by over one million operations. Sliding doors are also an excellent space saver and their installation into the Beach Building maintains the aesthetic of its seamless glass façade. British Airways i360 sits at the landward end of the former Victorian West Pier. It tips a nod to its 90 THE door industry journal winter 2016 entrance doors feature