Who: Kelvin Ling is the general manager of Breezway Malaysia, an Australia-based company that specialises in designing and manufacturing window louvres. Founded in 1947, Breezway actually manufactured the window louvres many of us remember from our childhood —glass blades held together by an aluminium frame with a handle to manoeuvre it. 

Quality concerns once plagued these louvre-style windows. Their superior design, which encouraged ventilation, was eclipsed by their unreliability — the glass blades often chipped, the frames tended to become rusty and the lever system often failed. Stylistically, they fell out of favour too and homeowners started to prefer sliding glass panels or French windows instead.

Today, the company has more than reinvented itself and its product range with high-quality window louvres that are as stylish as they are functional. After joining the company four years ago, Ling has helped to streamline the business in Malaysia to better serve a new generation of homeowners who are constantly on the lookout for leaner and greener solutions for their abodes. 

What: Breezway’s state-of-the-art louvre windows aim to bring together old-fashioned ingenuity and modern technology in one single product. “The idea is to provide the homeowner with the flexibility of leaving their windows open for maximum air circulation of ventilation — no other window solution works as well as this louvre style. What Breezway is doing is adding value to the product that no other company can possibly provide.”

All Breezway louvres are perfectly suited for air-conditioned rooms as they are completely air and water tight and resistant to winds of up to 250kph. When the louvres are shut, they close so tightly even a piece of paper cannot fit through, so there are no security concerns either. “Breezway’s windows are capable of withstanding the really strong rain and winds in Australia, so you can be quite assured that they will work very well in Malaysia. And they close so tightly that it is almost impossible to pry them open from outside,” Ling comments. 

Beauty is an important part of the Breezway experience — choose the finishing you want for the glass blades or opt for timber-finished aluminium blades instead. Then, match the colour of the louvre frames to the theme you have chosen for your home. A café in Melbourne has opted for multi-coloured blades in a red frame, if that’s a look you like, or you can create a more sombre look by combining light and dark-tinted blades for a unique visual signature. 

“This part of the service is what customers really like because it’s not just a functional part of their home but a stylish design feature that adds to the overall décor,” Ling comments. 

For louvres that are out of reach, Breezway offers the option of fully motorised panels that you can operate via a wall switch or an app on your mobile phone, but you have to be in range — they can’t be remotely controlled just yet. However, a rain sensor attached to your roof does put to rest any concerns of letting the rain in if you are not at home to close them manually. 

As Breezway’s expertise is in purely manufacturing and not retail, their window louvres are sold entirely through agents — homeowners are welcome to see how the louvres work at their Experience Centre, though, and a list of agents will be provided. 

Where: Explore these futuristic window louvres at the Breezway Experience Centre, B-07-25, Empire Subang Soho, Jalan SS16/1, Subang Jaya. Call (1300) 888 339 or visit www.breezway.com.my for more information. 

This article first appeared in The Edge haven, on Issue #72 April + May 2015.