Aluminum is a lightweight and highly durable material, conceived of from the start as a high-tech option. It is strong and pleasant to handle, being highly adept at matching ambient temperatures, and allows for a multitude of aesthetic options due to its ability to be painted any range of colors.
With a reputation for being used in the auto, aeronautical, and aerospace industries due to these unique qualities, aluminum can likewise be applied to door handles not just for its low weight, strength, and durability, but because of its ecologically friendly life cycle. While the initial extraction of aluminum requires a large amount of energy, the material can be recycled repeatedly with no loss, making up its initial extraction many times over through extensive energy savings.
Aluminum coloring options additionally pave the way for seemingly unlimited aesthetic possibilities, ranging from classic emulations of real hardware metals to lively applications of hundreds of pure colors. Depending on methods of coloring, some colored aluminum handles are more durable than others – for example, blasted anodized aluminum finishes are typically more resistant to knocks and scratches than traditionally worked and anodized aluminum. If both color and durability are a priority for the designer, we recommend considering the differences in properties produced by differing processes.