SPECIALIST DOOR DESIGN AND MANUFACTURE
‘Perfectionist’ approach to door development
Lee Cranidge, Company Secretary and Commercial manager at North Lincolnshire-based bespoke joinery manufacturer and installer, STJ Projects, explains how, working with a partner manufacturer, the company designed, developed, and manufactured, a ‘bespoke’, extremely robust doorset, incorporating vision panels and a new pill and beverage hatch, to a tight specification for Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust. Following feedback, STJ subsequently modified the doorset to reduce its weight and thickness to fit the existing door frames, and exhaustively tested it to ensure that it could withstand repeated and severe abuse.
At STJ Projects we like a challenge. Our many years of experience working across many sectors – including mental health – have given us a vast amount of knowledge and some excellent skillsets when it comes to the design, manufacture, and installation, of doorsets, furniture, and all other joinery- based items
One of our long-standing NHS clients, Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, approached us recently to organise a ‘brainstorming’ meeting to tackle some issues it was currently experiencing in one of its high secure hospital environments.
While talking through the issues and requirements with the client, it soon became apparent that development was crucial to overcome issues which perhaps would not have existed just two years ago. It was agreed and felt that service-users were ‘evolving and extending’ some of their behavioural characteristics, resulting in behaviour traits being seen today that were not in the past. Our task was to design, manufacture, and install, a robust, yet aesthetically pleasing doorset that met the key requirements the client needed to address. These included the incorporation of a regular height vision panel; a low-level vision panel (so that service-users can be observed from a seated position in the corridor); vision panels at heights that suit a range of staff heights, and a better- functioning pill and beverage hatch – with glazing that could not be smashed (patients had found a way to break the current 19 mm toughened glass which has been favoured for many years in mental health environments). The doorset also needed to be able to withstand a high level of abuse.
Harnessing our
manufacturing expertise Having much to think about, our first step was to make contact with one of our manufacturing partners, a local metal fabrication company, to assist us in the design and manufacture of a pill and
THE NETWORK | JULY 2020
STJ Projects' Pill & Beverage Hatch was designed to be able to withstand considerable and repeated abuse. The company sees it mainly for use in high secure settings, and possibly in the justice system.
Our task was to design, manufacture, and install, a robust, yet aesthetically pleasing doorset that met the key requirements the client needed to address
beverage hatch. With this fresh design, we made sure that the hatch could also double up as a serving shelf, ensuring additional security for both staff and patients during the transaction of passing items. Our Pill & Beverage Hatch has again been designed to withstand the potential abuse it may face, and when closed, fully fills the door aperture, helping to reduce ligature risk. Once we were happy that development of the Pill & Beverage Hatch was well under way, our focus turned to potential design ideas, and to setting out to ensure that the door retained its strength, even with the incorporation of two vision panels, one pill and beverage hatch, and two mortice lock cases. Incorporating all of these elements
would require the removal of a sizeable amount of the door core material. With this in mind, a few options were drawn up for the client Trust on CAD to allow its team to visualise the look of the different setting options. After some time of client debate and circulating around its internal teams, a preferred design was agreed upon. The Trust has its own on-site testing facility, and it was agreed that we would manufacture a fully finished doorset to the agreed design and specification. This would allow the Trust to perform a full destructive test, to ensure that the doorset performed under abuse, and could be successfully used in the context of the service-users within the building. The doorset design and specification included our enhanced door build process to complement a strong door core, prior to the application of finishing layers to give an attractive Oak-effect PVC face finish. As a result, the completed door had a thickness of 64 mm.
Proven fixing specification During the installation of the test door, we used the same fixing specification that we have used numerous times in similar
29
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38
