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Catalina Bay

Development company Willis Bond & Co has finished restoration work on a historic aircraft hangar at Hobsonville Point in collaboration with Cheshire Architects and LT McGuinness building contractors.

These waterfront buildings once housed and serviced Catalina and Sunderland flying boats and became part of an important air force base in WWII. The Sunderland hanger now houses three eateries with seating spread out between, a children’s playground, an event space, a Havana coffee roastery, and the Little Creatures brewery.

A 4.7 tonne bi-folding door was constructed in collaboration with Tru-Bilt Industries and our factory. The fully glazed, steel-framed door is 8.9m high and 12.2m wide. The oversized ‘fire station door’ folds vertically providing a dramatic removable wall from a triple-height space on to the forecourt.

Door + Window Systems not only glazed the door but also supplied other systems in both the building envelope and the cavernous interior. An on-display brewery with fermentation and storage tanks sits pride of place behind a partition made from the Altherm Flushglaze commercial window systems. The micro-brewery façade is unusual in being top-glazed with wire mesh to allow ventilation into the brewing hall. Flushglaze windows have also been used in breath-taking, 9m-high expanses abutting the hangar door and in vertical strips on the front of the building. At the lower end of the front facades, large hinged windows opening 90 degrees on gas struts give access to a coffee and cocktail bar for patrons drinking alfresco. Overall a great project to be a part of that illustrates the benefits of an innovative conversion of an old building into new uses.

DOORS + WINDOW SYSTEMS