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News & Updates

The Steven Spielberg-produced documentary Rising: Rebuilding Ground Zero features Snøhetta's September 11th Memorial Museum, stainless steel cladding by Zahner.

Announcing the Zahner-KME joint venture for the European Market. Read the Press Release at the JV site. Zahner-KME in Joint Venture

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The Zahner App is now available for iPhone. Features hundreds of projects by artists and architects. iPhone App

Zahner Campus North Dock Expansion has won the Monsters of Design Honor Award; designed by Crawford Architects' Stephen Colin and Michael O'Donnell.

The North American Copper Awards has recognized Zahner's copper metal-work for the Waipolu Gallery in Oahu, Hawaii.

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Announcing the winners for the Biennial ZAHNER + KCAI Art and Sculpture Competition at KCAI.

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Tessellate™ kinetic metal surfaces by Zahner and ABI released: visually stunning and environmentally responsible.

Bill Zahner named an Honorary Member of the American Institute of Architects.

Introducing the Hands of the Artist™ division, where Zahner engineers and craftsmen produce projects for artists.
Visit Zahner's Hands of the Artist website

Art Gallery of Alberta

Randall Stout's AGACanada

The Art Gallery of Alberta is located in downtown Edmonton, in the province of Alberta, Canada.  Designed by the acclaimed Randall Stout Architects , this project is the third major building between the Los Angeles based firm and Zahner.  A massive ribbon of stainless steel wraps itself around and through the building serving both functional and visual architectural elements. Dubbed the borealis, this represent the northern lights, a frequent phenomenon of the Edmonton night sky. The borealis snakes through the gallery's interior and emerges to form the roof's canopy, and then drops again to serve as a “snow cone," collecting snow and ice from during Edmonton's harsh winter.

The structure features several products by Zahner.  The sleek curving borealis is paneled using our Angel Hair™ Stainless steel surface. This surface treatment gives the building its muted glow, reducing and nearly eliminating any harsh glare from the sun.  Zahner engineered the "borealis" using the ZEPPS™ process, a patented system developed by Zahner to simplify the construction of complex structures and facades.  For a curvilinear form that wraps around and within the building, an intelligent structural system was required that would both handle the curves and handle all structural loads.  The ZEPP™ Process was engineered so that the onsite installers at Flynn could easily install the pre-fabricated panels.  

The building also features a variation on the Hunter™ Preweathered Zinc patina we developed for the Hunter Museum in Chattanooga, Tennessee. This surface is used throughout the interior and the exterior on flat and geometric surfaces of the building. Observers have noted that the surface is similar in appearance to slate or limestone.

Design Assist

Zahner was awarded the design assist contract for this project. Zahner is one of the only teams in the world that has a dedicated team for handling design-engineering processes, and this team is known as the Design Assist Group. The group divides the project up and translates the architects' intent into producible subsections and parts which the draftsmen and project engineers can then rapidly push to the fabrication facility.

As part of the design assist phase, DAG produced several scale mock-ups (see pictures below) of both the flat-lock zinc siding as well as the curvilinear Angel Hair™ Stainless surface. These mock-ups give a sense of the upcoming quality, as well as allowing all parties to take a look at potential problems and develop essential solutions.

Design Assist | BIM to Build

Zahner's Design Assist Group sets the foundation for the projects' future. As the construction world continues to move towards digital and cloud computing, the Design Assist Group is already prepared and geared towards Building Information Modeling frameworks, so that every contractor, subcontractor and the owners, are on the same page at every stage of construction.

The structure was divided into several complex components, and to keep the entire project organized required a strong Building Information Model (BIM). Drawings from the architect were digitally defined and refined into a working model which served to involve every aspect of its construction.

This makes complex components such as the an architectural metal wing flying through the window possible (see below). Coordinating multiple trades is one of the big strengths of BIM. It also plays a large role in condensing the construction down to its essentials, so that no teams are taking more steps than necessary.

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