Renson: 'New screens on slim window profiles in the heart of Ghent'

An apartment in the heart of Ghent, Belgium, offers a beautiful view of the city thanks to large windows. This view must be as undisturbed as possible, even on sunny days, when at the same time the heat must be kept out. See there the challenge for Kristof Torck, director of the family business of the same name and Renson Premium Ambassador. He suggested the Fixscreen Minimal as a suitable shading solution for this apartment. 

"Being a Premium Ambassador for Renson requires several years of experience with the company's products and going through different stages," Torck explains. "It is also a vote of confidence: Renson trusts our good performance in sales, installation and after-sales." 

Preventing overheating

On this project in Ghent, Torck was able to take full advantage of his expertise with Renson's blinds. "The residents of this apartment were looking for a solution that would largely keep out the effects of heat waves, such as we have had during some of the past summers. Having had good experiences with solar shading in their previous apartment, they wanted such a solution again. After all, exterior blinds can make a big difference to the room temperature on hot days, because solar heat is blocked on the outside, even before it can reach the glass." 

Maximum retention of outward vision

However, Torck discovered on site that several obstacles hindered the installation of traditional cloth awnings or screens. "The residents naturally wanted to preserve the view to the outside as much as possible. This is perfectly possible thanks to the transparency of the awning fabric, but for this reason, side guides and fabric box were not allowed to protrude in front of the window profiles." 

Since the apartment in Ghent is a relatively new building with large window surfaces and slim profiles, this was not a matter of course. "We saw right away that ordinary, side guides of 35 mm would not fit. These guides would protrude outside the window profile and thus limit the field of vision, and so we suggested Renson's Fixscreen Minimal to the residents." 

Advantages for slim window profiles

The residents were immediately convinced, says Kristof Torck. "Thanks to the narrow side guides of barely 20 mm, the Fixscreen Minimal turned out to be the ideal solution, without interfering with the large windows with slim profiles. Like the side guides, the fabric box was also not visible from the inside, which was an additional plus for the customer." 

Kristof Torck explains how amazingly simple everything was. "First we assembled the cabinet and the guides, then the fabric tube and finally the bottom rail. Very practical, because this allowed our fitters to keep the weight at assembly to a minimum." 

Minimalist cloth awnings as a house rule

"After the installation, some housemates were curious about the result, as they struggled with the same indoor overheating problem," Torck said. "As a result, this type of minimalist cloth awning is now part of the house rules of this apartment building! Anyone who wants to install blinds must choose to do so so as not to detract from the uniform look of the building. We take this as a great compliment to our work!"