Note from the President:
Our current newsletter highlights AMBICO’s skills and interests: both technically as well as geographically. While our team is most interested in producing world-class door and frame assemblies that meet demanding third-party certifications, we are deeply focused on the production of these items on a timely basis. Our products ranging from fire-rated, embossed, stainless steel to oversized, blast-resistant door and frame assemblies rely on easily sourced materials, in-house design, and engineering capabilities as well as the execution of these ideas by our experienced staff on the manufacturing floor. Our senior team takes pride not only in visioning how to improve upon our ideas but in realizing the absolute best way to achieve results that strive to lead the industry.
Our sales and service teams support projects largely in the USA and Canada but indeed we offer a global perspective working on projects from Dubai to Seoul. The articles in this newsletter highlight projects that we believe will be of interest to you and will perhaps enable you to consider AMBICO to be an essential part of your design or product supply team.
Jack Shinder
President
The AMBICO Solutions
The AMBICO Solution showcases AMBICO products and the solutions they bring to architectural projects and designs.
Safety and security are AMBICO’s top priority when it comes to door opening solutions, however, we also believe aesthetics should never take a backseat. Our decorative products – brass, bronze, and stone-clad doors and frames are excellent examples of the range of products that we manufacture that have been beautifully crafted and expertly designed to achieve rugged performance. These products are designed in consultation with our project design team to meet the unique requirements of each job. Typically, our clad products consist of bronze and brass wrapped around a hollow metal steel door, giving it a beautiful outer appearance with the strength of a hollow metal door frame. For stone products, the stone veneer can be fastened mechanically to a reinforced steel core, often on one face of the door and frame.
Beautifully crafted doors with a high-performance level, come with their manufacturing concerns and challenges. In 2018, AMBICO accepted a job to design, build and supply bronze and stone-clad doors. The biggest challenge for us on this project, especially with the bronze-clad product was to find ways to construct and build the interior components of the door and frame so that they were robust but also allow for cladding to seamlessly be added over the top of its core. Bronze and brass are soft metals and cannot be welded like steel. Therefore this material must uniquely adhere to the base steel frame or door. To achieve the fi nest decorative finish, our factory must carefully clad the doors and frames concealing all face seams while ensuring the finished frames and doors are robust enough to withstand the high-frequency usage often associated with these signature openings.
For our stone-clad products, the biggest challenge was to determine the best method to hang the door. With the additional thickness of cladding material, there was a need to ensure that the door did not bind on the frame through the swing of the door, while at the same time ensuring that clearances are kept to a minimum. Once a hinge is chosen, the opening was mocked up in CAD, and a swing analysis was performed to ensure that the door would be able to swing freely without any interference between the stone covering the frame, the wall, and the stone being fastened to the door. This required custom modify cations to hinge offsets and precise clearances between frame and door cladding.
Even though there were challenges associated with the design and manufacturing of these products, decorative clad openings offer distinct advantages. The clad materials used are constructed using sheet metal thicknesses rather than plate thicknesses used in solid bronze or brass doors. The door weight is substantially less, and this allows for the use of conventional builders’ hardware. Additionally, the cost of these clad door openings is considerably less than solid bronze or brass openings because of the use of moderately costed sheet material.
Our engineering and factory personnel have the unique skills and experience to be able to manufacture these clad products to meet the most demanding architectural configurations. Follow the link below to learn more about our Brass and Bronze Clad Doors and Assemblies
Bronze & Brass Clad Doors
AMBICO in the World
AMBICO in the world highlights architectural projects throughout the world that have used AMBICO products.
AMBICO excels at complex heritage projects and our decorative products have been used around the world in historic buildings and restorations. In 2017, AMBICO Limited was approached to lend its expertise to an ambitious plan to replace the original solid bronze doors at The Cadillac Place, in central Detroit. The place was worn and failing after close to a century of use. Today’s modern door and frame assemblies would meet the stringent building codes while still respecting the aesthetics of the venerable building.
AMBICO’s designers incorporated aesthetic details that included stunning mitered corners and worked closely with the architects on the project to address heritage concerns while ensuring that the bronze cladding on the new doors was as close a match as possible to the original bronze doors. Today, the new bronze doors and frame assemblies at the Cadillac Place are in modern spirit, but with an old-world finish that harkens back to the 1920s. Similar to the Cadillac place, AMBICO has successfully completed several signature projects such as Phoenix LDS Temple and Lafayette Building in Phoenix, Arizona, United States. The West Block in Ottawa, and Winnipeg’s Victory Building among several others.
Follow the links below to learn more about our projects on Brass and Bronze Clad Doors and assemblies at: Cadillac Place | The Victory Building
AMBICO Extended Family
AMBICO Extended Family is a quarterly feature focusing on AMBICO rep agencies around the world.
The DDL group, established in 1990, now active for over 33 years plays a dual role in the Western Canadian Market in promoting key Product Solution Partners such as AMBICO. Being an active industry member of the Door and Hardware Institute, DDL Group offers specialized consulting, third-party project management, and security door inspections along with knowledge-based support of product solution partners.
AMBICO relies on the team of DDL to add value to the many projects that we are asked to take on in these provinces. Their team includes Don Lopatka AHC, FDAI, CET, Director of Business Development, Shannon Moran, FDAI Business Development / Client Services, and Casey Choma, Business Development / Client Services.
With today’s demands from design, operations, ownership, and the user, a door is more than just a point of entry. The DDL Group aspires to deliver the knowledge and relationships needed to provide the appropriate product for the right application at the right time in a market marked by rapid change, greater complexity, and increasing competition. The DDL Group believes in cultivating long-standing, mutually beneficial relationships, built on communication, integrity, and trust among our associates, clients, and principals.
The firm’s offices cover Northern Ontario (Thunder Bay west) as well as the western parts of Canada such as Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia.
Follow the link to learn more about our extended family: Connect with an AMBICO Rep
AMBICO’s CEU Courses
Our free Commercial Steel Doors in Resilient Design self-paced course offers architects the opportunity to learn about the benefits of using steel doors as part of a resilient design strategy for applications requiring resistance from man-made and natural disasters such as blasts, tornadoes, and ballistic threats. Completion of the course grants architects with 1.5 LU/HSW credits accredited by AIA.
Learn more about our list of CEU Courses at AIA Certified Online Learning
