Meeting with Dominique Rey, Director of Solarlux France

Batinfo: Can you come back to the history of Solarlux France?

Dominic Rey: SOLARLUX GmbH was founded 39 years ago in Germany. This company had an unprecedented development strategy by choosing to develop, from its inception, around an atypical product: the accordion berry. It has become the key player in Europe. Added to this iconic product is a rich range of moving systems that have made terms of transparency, technicality and openness the hallmarks of the company's vision.

I created the French subsidiary in 2017 in order to distribute these innovative solutions on the French market. Moreover, we are going to celebrate the 5th anniversary of SOLARLUX France during the Batimat show with the major players who have been supporting us in our growth since that date.

Thanks to the unique and singular character of SOLARLUX products, we know a constant dynamic of our presence marked by the opening of our second showroom in Paris and the recruitment of new employees each year in order to provide ever more effective support to our partners.

This dynamic is also characterized by an ever-widening network of distributors in France. One of the keys to this success is our positioning, in a market already occupied by well-known players, with innovative and differentiating products.

We are the specialist in large-scale joinery. The Solarlux accordion bay is an illustration of this. Our technical expertise allows us to offer a solution with a total opening to the outside, a height of up to 4.5m without any width constraint. A technical feat, validated by numerous registered patents, that we are the only ones able to offer with the thinnest profiles on the market.

The accordion window is available in different materials, in aluminum (Ecoline, Highline and Megaline), in wood (Woodline) and in wood-aluminium cover (Combiline). This is possible because we control the entire manufacturing process thanks to our integrated aluminum and wood workshops. We also have our own powder coating unit for aluminum with 30 standard RAL colors and a painting unit for wood in order to offer a personalized, tailor-made customer experience.

Contrary to what is being done on the market, we have opted for a perfectly waterproof glazed bioclimatic pergola that we can equip with a blind for solar protection. Our users can thus benefit from the sunlight while being protected from the rain.

Batinfo: Why did you choose this differentiation and this niche sector?

Dominic Rey: The company was born from the concept of the accordion bay, it is the DNA of SOLARLUX. The very idea of ​​differentiation is at the heart of our company's culture. The choice was made from the outset to offer, on a highly competitive market, offbeat solutions with high standards of quality and aesthetics. The axis of development is based on the synergy between perfect technical mastery and a desire to always go beyond the limits of the conventional.

This strategy places us in a growing niche market sheltered from the competition experienced by the traditional joinery market. SOLARLUX completes the range of products for distributors, and allows them to offer an atypical and daring differentiating offer.

This is what motivated me to develop the accordion bay in France, where the solution is not well known to the general public. There is everything to do and build, the challenge is exciting and the projects we carry out are just as extraordinary!

SOLARLUX is above all ready to install, each project is unique. The scope of our achievements requires high standards and we attach great importance to the support, training and know-how of our distributor-installer partners.

It is the compilation of these expertises that recently made it possible to create an accordion bay with 14 leaves and 3 meters in height, for the Badinter school in Asnière-sur-Seine.

Our offer also includes the minimalist CERO slider, a minimalist profile combined with patented technology that allows us to offer joinery up to 6 meters high, with a leaf that can reach one ton. For this type of project, the technical director of SOLARLUX works in close collaboration with all those involved in the project, from the architect, through the mason and the installer.

The combination of these criteria: innovation, atypical product, requirement and support allows us to progress serenely in this niche market, with real success in terms of the satisfaction of our customers and end users.

Batinfo: What are your upcoming projects ?

Dominic Rey: On the occasion of the next Batimat Fair, we will present our new range of accordion bays: "Megaline", with a height of up to 4.5m, launched at the beginning of 2022. It is a new product, with dimensions XXL while maintaining an extremely high requirement for thermal performance, which has no equivalent on the market.

SOLARLUX is also rewards received by professionals in the sector who recognize both our technical innovations with the SL 23, a balcony closing system tested at 7.000 Pa, and our work on design with the SDL Avalis. SDL Avalis for which we received the "Innovation Award" this year. It is a flat cross-laminated laminated roof, respecting the RE2020, with a perfect integration of skylights or even our large minimalist sliding doors.

These incredible solutions will be showcased, among many other systems from SOLARLUX, at Batimat 2022.

We will also continue our development with the expansion of our showroom in Aix-en-Provence in order to present the new SOLARLUX solutions and preview the 2023 innovations. And continue to strengthen our teams in order to support our partners in their development through an even more complete presence and numerous training courses on our products and the tools that we make available to our customers, including the augmented reality application.