Designing and Manufacturing the Ivan Curved Screen
When Pepper & Well set out to renovate and extend a heritage home in Fitzroy North — a project they've named Monet — they needed more than a simple privacy fence for the new upper level. They needed a screen that could do several jobs at once: shield the addition from the street, filter light into the main bedroom and ensuite, and visually tie the new build back to the ornate ironwork lacework of the existing Victorian-era house.
That brief became the starting point for one of our most detailed custom screening projects to date, and the inspiration behind a new addition to our Construction Range: the Ivan Curved Screen.
A Screen With Multiple Jobs to Do
Good privacy screening is never just about blocking a sightline. On Monet, the screen wraps the new second-storey addition in a gently scalloped, perforated metal skin. From the street, it softens the scale of the new build and gives the upstairs bedroom and ensuite a sense of enclosure. From inside, that same perforated surface becomes something else entirely — a delicate veil that lets in filtered light and framed views out to the city, while still protecting the occupants' privacy.
Getting that dual effect right — solid enough to read as a considered architectural element from outside, open enough to disappear from inside — comes down to the geometry and detailing of the perforation and curve, not just the material choice. It's this balance that shaped how we approached the design and manufacture of the screen.
One of the most interesting design challenges on Monet was making a contemporary addition feel connected to a heritage streetscape. Rather than ignoring the existing home's decorative ironwork lacework, Pepper and Well used it as a starting reference point, reinterpreting that rhythm and pattern in a more contemporary form across the new screening.
Translating a heritage decorative language into a modern, mass-produced screen system meant working closely with the architects through multiple iterations — refining the scallop profile, the spacing of the perforations, and the curvature of each panel until the pattern read as a considered evolution of the original detailing, rather than a pastiche of it.
From Bespoke Detail to a Repeatable Product
Custom architectural screening projects like Monet often start as one-off solutions, built and detailed for a single site. What made this project different is that the curved, scalloped screen system we developed for Monet worked so well — structurally and aesthetically — that we've since engineered it into a standalone product line: the Ivan Curved Screen.
The Ivan is fabricated from powder-coated aluminium, chosen for its strength, durability and low maintenance in exposed outdoor and public-facing applications. Each panel is engineered to hold its curve and rigidity without heavy framing, which is what allows the finished screen to read as light and sculptural rather than bulky.
While the standard Ivan panel measures 646mm (L) x 105mm (W) x 2700mm (H), the system is built to be adaptable. Custom sizes, radii and finishes mean each installation can be manufactured to suit a project's specific design intent and site conditions — exactly as it was for the curved upper-level screening at Monet.
Why Manufacture Matters as Much as Design
A privacy screen with this level of visual detail lives or dies on the quality of its manufacture. Before any colour goes on, every panel goes through a chromate pre-treatment process that chemically prepares the raw aluminium surface, giving the powder coat something to properly bond to rather than sitting on top of an untreated, oxide-prone surface. It's a step you'll never see in the finished screen, but it's what stops coastal air, UV and years of weather exposure from lifting or corroding the coating at the edges and folds of a curved panel. You can read more about why this step matters for outdoor aluminium in our post on chromate pre-treatment for outdoor aluminium furniture.
From there, the powder-coating itself needs to be applied evenly across every curved panel to hold up outdoors over time. Perforation and scalloping need to be consistent from panel to panel so the overall pattern reads correctly at a distance. And the curve itself needs to be engineered so that panels align cleanly on site, without gaps or misalignment disrupting the rhythm of the screen.
This is where having the design and manufacturing process under one roof makes a real difference. Because the Ivan Curved Screen was developed in direct response to a live architectural brief, every part of its specification — material gauge, coating, radius tolerance, fixing details — was tested against the real-world requirements of a residential façade before it became a standard product offering.
Bringing Custom Screening to Your Project
The Ivan Curved Screen is available in Surfmist as a standard finish, with custom sizes, radii and colours available for architects and builders looking to achieve a similar effect on their own projects. Whether you're after privacy screening for a busy streetscape, a feature façade element, or a way to soften the scale of a new addition, the Ivan can be manufactured to suit your site and design.
Minimum order quantity is two, with a 10–30 day lead time depending on specification. Get in touch with our team to discuss project-specific dimensions, finishes and lead times.