A Queensland stainless steel fabrication company has successfully turned a product usually found in industrial environments into an architectural design feature that is gaining popularity on Australia’s east coast.

Stainless steel screens and grates have traditionally been used for filtering and cleaning in the mining, petrochemical, food processing and water treatment industries — applications where water transfer is required.

ASSDA member, Paige Stainless Fabrications has taken the grating concept further, beyond a simple drainage system, by using the product in architectural applications such as stair treads,  walkways and entry mats.

Paige Stainless Fabrications designs and manufactures ‘heel proof’ stainless steel products using close bar longitudinal / transverse grating.

One example of the product in action can be found at the Andrew ‘Boy’ Charlton Pool, Sydney, a popular swimming icon suspended over spectacular Woolloomooloo Bay.

Architects, Lippmann Associates, won a RAIA Architecture award in 2003 for public building design. As part of the project design, Lippmann Associates specified stainless steel stair treads and entry mats.

ASSDA Major Sponsor, Atlas Specialty Metals, supplied grade 316 L stainless steel to the project because of it’s high corrosion resistance. The stainless steel product delivered the desired functional, environmental and aesthetic values that find appeal to architectural environments rather than traditional forms of drainage.

In further applications, the grade 304 stainless steel grating product has been used extensively for entry mats to the following buildings:

• Ambros Building (corner Bent and Phillip Streets, Sydney).
• AMP Building - Sydney
• Customs House, Sydney
• IBM Building, Sydney
• National Australia Bank Administration, Melbourne Docklands

This article featured in Australian Stainless magazine - Issue 32, Winter 2005.