Prathush Sreedharan explained why, rather than launch an existing product, the company built a new architectural powder coating, Alesta HD, designed to exceed the current class-3 benchmark and answer what landmark projects actually demand.
Axalta came to it with some pedigree, 150 years of coating expertise, more than forty years in fluoropolymer chemistry, and over six hundred patents to its name. “And we’re just beginning,” as Sreedharan put it.
Entering this segment, the company had two options: simply launch a product already in its portfolio and sold in other countries, or identify the gap in the market and build something that exceeds the current class-3 benchmark and solves the challenges landmark projects actually run into. It chose the harder path, and the result is Alesta HD.
A survey of what those projects need pointed to four things, and the product was built to answer each. Colour and finish, an expansive, open range of colours, finishes and effects. Durability and warranty, up to a thirty-year warranty and up to fifty years of service life. Compatibility, tested across substrates, with primers for many of them, so the coating doesn’t constrain design freedom. And added value, best-in-class fire performance together with measurable sustainability benefits.
The framing sat in the title: where surfaces shape skylines. On a landmark tower the coating is not a finishing touch but a decades-long performance commitment, and Alesta HD is Axalta’s argument that the coating should exceed the benchmark rather than merely meet it.