You’re in good hands

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. We work 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.

Experienced with a talented design eye, our team has superior architectural and engineering skills focused on high level solutions. We 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.

Together, these factors mean you’re in good hands, from every angle, and can be reassured you’re making the right decision by choosing to work with us.

The start of something big

We are 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 has always focused on quality engineering, and the company 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 by Angelique Renkhoff-Mucke, the daughter of co-founder, Hans-Wilhelm Renkhoff, who hold high standards of German technology excellence.

Our relationship with Warema began in 1998, to procure a product for a customer that was more specialised than the Australian market could offer. From there, a longstanding partnership developed.

We could see from the onset Warema was streets ahead with their products, innovation and approach. We began to work collaboratively with their engineers, designers and production teams to source premium products that are recognised internationally through winning multiple design awards.

Consequently, we 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, highly supportive.

Pioneering products

Since those early days, the requirements of the Australian design community and the increasing demand for sustainable and energy efficient sun shading has progressed greatly and we are in a strong position to continue offering more tailored and higher performing options for an abundance 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. We are proud that our response was a major contributor to the achievement of a highly energy efficient six-star Green Star rating for the project.

Creative expertise

Projects like these two don’t simply materialise out of thin air – they are the result of our hard work and industry expertise. But they are perfect examples of what we do best – creative problem solving and making things. Across the entire team, we get a real thrill from testing and solving complex problems, and then using our engineering know-how and First Principles design to create the best technical solution.  

From sketching designs by hand to providing rich documentation, we are a team of passionate people that loves ideas and creative purpose. By providing a holistic approach, we don’t simply sell blinds, we sell value with a better solution.

While we work in the different worlds of the architect and homeowner, our approach is the same. We listen, learn and become an extension of our customer, and then apply the practical skill to problem solving. We believe this is the only way to offer a completely unique solution that reflects all considerations and requirements – regardless of scale, size and building type.

The future is bright

We’re here for the long haul at the forefront of an exciting and growing industry both globally and in Australia. We’re particularly excited to see building energy performance in the residential sector look set to increase in line with international commitments to address global warming.

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. We’re very proud to be a leading contributor to the buildings of the future.