Steve Darlington, Technical Manager for Facade Systems at Aliva UK, comments

Aliva’s expanded and perforated aluminium facade series offers unparalleled customisation, pushing the boundaries of architectural design with innovative solutions. Aliva's range opens new creative possibilities, blending intricate patterns, intersections, and metallic weaves that allow designers to realise their vision like never before. Panels can also be curved and shaped in multiple formats. From small to large, Aliva can manufacture intricate, fine woven interlaced meshes through to ‘giant’ mesh strands with up to 800mm x 330mm pitch.

Architectural impact of mesh facades
Mesh facades create captivating visual dynamics, with interactions between light/shadow or solid/void, creating a sense of both modularity and movement. Bold colour palettes, artwork, anodising, and other custom finishes contribute to the dynamic character of perforated and expanded mesh solutions. Aliva’s product range offers a spectrum of finishes, from diamond and slotted patterns to circular, flat, shaped, rigid, flexible, shiny, matte, natural and coloured options, all fostering imaginative and artistic architectural expressions.

Anodised colour spectrum
Aliva UK's range of anodised meshes offer unrivalled options in terms of colour choice across the anodising spectrum. Whether your choice is orange to yellow or blue to green, we can produce these colourways, all with an external performance warranty.

Aliva offers production from factories that incorporate both the mesh production and in-house anodising tanks within the same facility, offering both value and reduced production times for such bespoke and colourful finishes.

To ensure maximum durability, Aliva's mesh facades can be anodised or powder-coated, in line with architectural requirements. Along with the complete RAL colour range, they offer custom and special paints to give your project a unique finish.

Advanced technology for custom mesh patterns
Aliva's cutting-edge production technology allows us to create various patterns within a single panel, including extra-large formats. Furthermore, they can manipulate the open strand dimensions of the mesh within a single pattern, producing a distinctive waveform effect on flat panels.

Practical benefits of mesh facades
In addition to their striking appearance, mesh facades also provide significant practical benefits, including improved ventilation. The manufacturing process is highly efficient, with no material waste as the mesh is formed from a single piece of metal. This makes it more economical than punched metal, while maintaining exceptional strength and structural integrity, as there are no loose strands, strained joins or welds.

High-quality fabrication and tolerances
Aliva's mesh facades are produced to exacting standards, ensuring high quality and tight tolerances for enhanced fabrication precision. Cladding panels are made from aluminium alloy sheets and can be oriented both horizontally and vertically from a number of coil widths, and a minimum standard thickness of 3mm, also perforated for performance. These panels are crafted through cutting, drilling, and two or three-dimensional forming, with edge profiles to form an encapsulating frame, to provide rigidity and enable concealed fastening.

Performance characteristics
Aliva's mesh and perforated facades offer outstanding performance characteristics, including flexibility, lightness and durability, with excellent resistance to wear, corrosion, and UV.

Sustainability
Aliva’s expanded and perforated mesh solutions are also sustainable. As with all Aliva aluminium products, they are fully recyclable at the end of their life. This aligns with their commitment to eco-friendly practices, such as their Alucovering, which is made from pure aluminium alloy and is 100% recyclable.