Shower Enclosure

The client is a leading manufacturer of shower enclosures who contacted Hillside Product Design to assist with the design of a new product range. The brief was to develop a range of doors and panels for the mid to high end of the shower enclosure market. There was a further requirement that would further stylistically differentiate, from the budget and top-of-the-range products, by the thickness of glazing and the amount of framing used in their construction. 

Budget shower enclosures would typically be made up of doors and panels that are fully framed with extruded aluminium, while top-of-the-range products would use no framing. The styling for the new range would need to sit between the two, with a minimally framed look mostly using 8mm glazing.

The project began with extensive research into the market sectors to ensure a full understanding of the product requirements and to identify opportunities for intellectual property to be developed and exploited. A scrapbook of ideas was then drawn up and discussed with the client over several meetings, before being refined to CAD concepts. These were refined using prototypes and in-situ water testing. 

The final designs were issued as 2D control drawings and 3D CAD files to the clients drawing office where they completed the specification of parts in conjunction with preferred manufacturing partners for manufacture. The project resulted in several novel mechanisms and these are protected with patents.