Custom Shopfronts Johannesburg | Design & Supply

CUSTOM SHOPFRONT WORK & DESIGN

Coetz™ designs and manufactures custom shopfronts — custom aluminium and glass shopfronts — in Johannesburg — from framed and frameless glass entrances to complete automatic-door shopfront packages — supplied ready for installation by your contractor or by MC Automations, Coetz™’s parent company.

Automatic Entrance Solutions

What Coetz™ custom shopfronts cover

• Custom shopfronts: aluminium design and manufacture
• Framed and frameless glass entrances
• Automatic sliding-door and swing-door shopfront preparation
• Fixed sidelights, transoms and structural coordination
• Safety-glass selection and supply
• Coordinated manufacturing dimensions and drawings scope per quotation

Scope notice: Installation, electrical work, access-control wiring and commissioning are excluded unless specifically included in a written quotation. Coetz™ remains primarily supply-only.

Applications

Coetz™ custom shopfronts suit a wide range of commercial buildings — retail stores and shopping centres, offices and corporate receptions, medical and healthcare facilities, hotels and hospitality venues, and new commercial developments. Whether you need a single frameless glass entrance or a full automatic-door shopfront package, we design and manufacture to your project’s dimensions.

Why Coetz™ for custom shopfronts

• Design and manufacture in-house — aluminium and glass shopfronts built to your drawings and dimensions.
• Automation ready — MC-125 sliding and MCW-100 swing operators, with installation available through MC Automations.
• Certified safety glass — laminated and toughened safety glass selected for the application.
• Trade coordination — clear scope and dimensions per written quotation for architects, contractors and project managers.

What counts as a custom shopfront?

A shopfront becomes custom the moment the opening stops matching a standard product. That happens more often than most people expect: an existing building rarely offers a square, standard-sized opening, and a new development almost never does. Custom shopfronts are designed around the opening that actually exists rather than the one a catalogue assumes.

In practice the trigger is usually one of the following:

• Non-standard dimensions. The opening falls outside standard widths or heights, or is out of square enough that a stock frame would leave visible gaps.
• A specific configuration. A fixed pane with an automatic sliding door in the centre, a door flanked by sidelights, or a transom carrying additional height.
• An automatic entrance. The shopfront has to be designed around the operator and its header, which changes the framing above the opening.
• Frameless or minimal sightlines. A design intent that a standard framed system cannot deliver.
• Structural interfaces. Columns, lintels, service ducts or an existing facade that the shopfront has to work around.

None of these make a project difficult. They simply mean the shopfront is drawn before it is made, which is exactly what custom shopfronts are for.

Framed or frameless: choosing the system

The first real decision on most custom shopfronts is whether the glass sits in an aluminium frame or is supported with minimal framing. Both are legitimate; they answer different briefs.

• Aluminium-framed. The frame carries the glass, which keeps glass thickness and cost down and makes sealing, security and future glass replacement straightforward. It suits most retail, office and healthcare entrances.
• Frameless. Minimal visible framing for the cleanest sightlines, typically where the entrance is part of the brand presentation. It places more demand on the glass itself and on the surrounding structure.

There is no universally correct answer for custom shopfronts, and the honest comparison is set out in our guide to frameless shopfronts versus aluminium shopfronts. Many custom shopfronts end up using both — a framed perimeter with frameless elements where the design calls for it.

Glass specification for custom shopfronts

Standard glazing on Coetz™ work is 6.38 mm clear laminated safety glass. Laminated glass carries an interlayer that helps hold the pane together if it breaks, which is why it is the sensible default on a public entrance.

Toughened glass is heat-treated for strength and breaks into small, less hazardous pieces; it is selected where the application calls for it. On custom shopfronts the glass specification is confirmed against the project rather than assumed, because the right answer depends on the pane size, the location within the entrance and what the building requires.

If your project, your landlord or your local authority specifies something different from the standard, say so at enquiry stage. Glass is not a detail that can be changed after manufacture.

Designing a custom shopfront around an automatic door

Where an automatic entrance is involved, custom shopfronts and the operator have to be designed together. This is the single most common reason a shopfront has to be custom rather than standard.

• The header. The operator sits in a housing above the opening, so the framing above the door is determined by the operator rather than by the glazing.
• Side room. A sliding leaf needs somewhere to go. Fixed panels either side of the opening have to accommodate the leaf when it is open.
• Power. A supply is needed at the header, and it is far easier to allow for during design than to chase in afterwards.
• Sidelights and transoms. Fixed glazed panels alongside and above the entrance are usually what makes the whole assembly read as one deliberate shopfront rather than a door in a hole.

Coetz™ supplies the shopfront and can supply the MC-125 sliding operator or the MCW-100 swing operator with it — shopfront only, operator only, or as a coordinated package. Installation and commissioning of automatic entrances are arranged through MC Automations Entrance Systems.

Measuring and structural coordination

Custom shopfronts are manufactured to the dimensions supplied, so those dimensions carry real weight on any custom shopfronts order. A few principles prevent almost every problem we see.

• Measure the structural opening. The brickwork or structural opening, not an existing frame. The two are never the same, and the difference is exactly the amount by which a new shopfront will not fit.
• Check for square. Measure width at the top, middle and bottom, and height at both sides and the centre. An out-of-square opening is workable, but only if it is known in advance.
• Record the floor. Finished floor level and any build-up affect the threshold, and matter more on an automatic entrance than on a fixed screen.
• Note the interfaces. Columns, lintels, downpipes, ducting, signage and existing facade elements all compete for the same space.
• Allow installation clearance. A shopfront manufactured to the exact opening size cannot be installed into it.

Where drawings exist, send them. An architect’s elevation and plan answer more questions in one exchange than a week of correspondence, and they are what allow custom shopfronts to be quoted accurately rather than provisionally.

How a custom shopfront project runs

The process behind custom shopfronts is deliberately simple, and knowing the sequence helps you plan around it.

• Enquiry. You send dimensions, drawings and photographs, and describe the configuration and intent.
• Scope and drawings. We confirm what is being supplied and the manufacturing dimensions, so both sides are working from the same numbers.
• Written quotation. Priced against the confirmed scope. What is included and what is excluded is stated rather than implied.
• Manufacture. Built to the agreed dimensions once the quotation is accepted.
• Delivery or collection. Delivered nationwide, or collected from our Laser Park premises.
• Installation, where applicable. Fitting by your contractor, or arranged through MC Automations where an automatic entrance is involved.

The step that repays the most attention is the second. Once manufacturing dimensions are agreed, custom shopfronts become a manufacturing exercise rather than a negotiation.

What to send us for a quotation

Complete enquiries for custom shopfronts get priced quickly. Sending the following usually avoids a second round of questions entirely.

• Structural opening width and height in millimetres, with the out-of-square check noted.
• Architectural drawings or elevations if they exist, including a plan view.
• Photographs of the existing opening or the building facade.
• The configuration you want — fixed screens, doors, sidelights, transoms, and what opens.
• Whether an automatic entrance is required, and if so sliding or swing.
• Any glass specification imposed by the project, landlord or authority.
• The finish you have in mind.
• Site location and target dates, so delivery can be planned around the programme.

If some of that is undecided, send what you have. Early input on custom shopfronts is consistently cheaper than late correction.

Security, sealing and long-term performance

Custom shopfronts are the part of the building that the weather and the public reach first, so three things decide whether it still performs in five years: how it is sealed, how it is secured, and how easily it can be maintained.

• Sealing. Water finds the junction between the shopfront and the structure long before it finds the glazing. The perimeter seal and how the frame meets the building matter more than any single component, which is why the structural interface is worth resolving on a drawing.
• Security. Laminated glass resists penetration better than an equivalent unlaminated pane because the interlayer holds the glass together. Locking, and how the door meets the frame, is the other half of the answer.
• Serviceability. Glazing beads, gaskets and locking hardware are all replaceable. A shopfront built so that a broken pane can be replaced without dismantling the assembly saves a great deal later.
• Finish. Powder-coated and anodised aluminium hold up well, though coastal and industrial environments are more demanding than inland suburban ones. Tell us where the building is.

These are the reasons custom shopfronts are worth drawing before they are made. Almost every long-term problem traces back to a junction that was improvised on site rather than designed.

Lead times and planning your programme

Custom shopfronts are manufactured to order, so they sit on the critical path of a fit-out in a way that stock items do not. Lead times depend on the products, the size of the order and the glass specification, and are confirmed when you place the order or request a quotation — we would rather give you a real date than a comfortable one.

What consistently saves time is the sequence rather than the speed:

• Enquire before the opening is finished. Dimensions can be confirmed against the structure as it is built, instead of discovering a discrepancy afterwards.
• Settle the glass specification early. It affects lead time and cannot be changed after manufacture.
• Confirm the automatic door decision early. It changes the framing above the opening, so retrofitting an operator into a completed shopfront is far harder than designing for it.
• Coordinate the electrician. A power point left at the header during first fix costs almost nothing; chasing one in afterwards does not.
• Agree who installs, and when. Delivery is only useful if somebody is ready to receive and fit the shopfront.

Handled in that order, custom shopfronts rarely hold up a programme. Handled in reverse, they routinely do.

One final point worth making plainly: custom shopfronts are not inherently more expensive than standard ones. What drives cost is the glass specification, the overall size, the configuration and whether an automatic operator is involved — not the fact that the shopfront was made to your dimensions. In many projects a custom shopfront is the cheaper outcome, because it fits the opening as built and does not need the surrounding structure altered to accept it.

Custom shopfronts: frequently asked questions

Recent installations

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Getting custom shopfronts right the first time

Almost everything that goes wrong with custom shopfronts is decided before manufacture, not during it. An opening measured to an old frame, a glass specification assumed rather than confirmed, an automatic door added to the brief after the framing was drawn — each of those is trivial to resolve on paper and expensive to resolve on site.

The practical advice is the same for a single frameless entrance and for a full automatic-door package: send the structural opening dimensions, whatever drawings and photographs you have, and a plain description of what the entrance needs to do. We will confirm the scope and the manufacturing dimensions in writing before anything is made, so the custom shopfronts you receive are the ones you specified.

If you are still weighing systems, read the comparison of frameless versus aluminium shopfronts or the guide to aluminium shopfronts in South Africa. If the entrance is going to be automated, planning a shopfront around an automatic door operator covers what changes. When you are ready, send the project team your drawings.

Related

See our standard aluminium doors and aluminium windows ranges, door hardware and glass cut to size. Trade and professional buyers can apply for a trade account.

Working on a commercial project? See our AAAMSA Glass & Glazing Certificate guide.

Aluminium shopfronts by area: Roodepoort, Randburg, Sandton and Midrand.