Hospitality | Zahner

FELIX

The Felix Restaurant at Peninsula Hotel, Hong Kong

FELIX is an avant-garde bar and restaurant at the Peninsula Hotel in Hong Kong. Designed by Philippe Starck, the restaurant promises spectacular city views and dining that pushes the limits of culinary boundaries.

Starck’s quirky design necessitated customization on every level. Zahner provided stainless steel and zinc metalwork throughout the restaurant, including unique basket-woven zinc strip seating backs and stairwell cladding. A custom patinated zinc wall covering and hammered zinc skirting provide unique accents in the wine room and caviar bar.

The Semantic Metal Surface

When defining a logic to use a particular surface material, various aesthetic qualities such as color, texture, patterns and boundaries are often considered. In our pursuit to arrive at materials that perform over a lifetime and do not possess hidden cost to our children's future, considerations of manufacture and eventual recovery and recycling of the material must also play a part. Architectural metals achieve these design requirements. They are durable and lightweight. They can be formed, shaped, pierced, cut and machined in ways only plastics can attempt to copy.

Interior woven zinc surfaces at the Felix Hong Kong

Fairmont Pacific Rim

August 15, 2016/in Exterior Architecture Hospitality, Parking Structure Canada, International, Vancouver BC James KM Cheng Architects L, M 2010 /by cmorris

Fairmont Pacific Rim in Downtown Vancouver BC, Canada

Located in downtown Vancouver, BC, Canada, a 44-story hotel was designed by James KM Cheng, just blocks from the Pacific Ocean. Zahner became involved when the architects opted for a perforated screen system which would disguise the first few floors of office and parking structures, while allowing light and air to enter through the thousands of tiny perforations.

What sets this perforated screen apart from standard fare is its unique surface design, a patterned perforated and bumped texture which subtly glistens across the surface. Architects wanted to solve two problems with one solution: creating a parking garage with an open air-flow, and an artistic facade surface that reflected the building’s natural surroundings.

Using Zahner’s patented ZIRA system, architects supplied Zahner with a photograph of the surrounding forest. The image was transferred onto the metal using perforations and dimples in the stainless steel. All across the building’s structure, trees create vertical lines running up and down the facade, and the forest emerges.

Fairmont Pacific Rim designed by James KM Cheng.

Translating the Image to Metal

The architect supplied a photograph of redwood trees taken in the surrounding nature of Vancouver, pictured below. The image was translated using software originally developed by Zahner for the de Young Museum in San Francisco.

The translated image data was applied across the metal surface algorithmically to account for panelization. Each of the perforated metal panels is designed with metal flange details that the ZIRA™ Process had to account for in the process of translating data. The image flows seamlessly across these panels and around the building’s corner edges.

Original Photograph supplied to Zahner for the ZIRA™ Visualizer Process.

The architects wanted to create a rippled effect with the metal, to create a surface both luxurious and functional. Using the ZIRA Process enables the architect to create this surface at a cost not much higher than a uniformly perforated surface.

No panel is the same, and the pattern never repeats itself across the stainless steel surface. Both the perforated surface as well as the bumped and dimpled texture were produced using a system of CNC-controlled punches and dies.

Detail of the custom perforated facade for Fairmont Pacific Rim.

Detail of the perforated metal facade on Fairmont Pacific Rim

Detail of the Fairmont Pacific Rim perforated panels and signage.

Dream Downtown

August 15, 2016/in Exterior Architecture Hospitality New York City Handel Architects Silver L 2011 /by cmorris

The Dream Downtown Hotel in New York City

The Dream Downtown Hotel, designed by Handel Architects, features a Zahner engineered custom façade and window system. To mitigate glare, the stainless steel is custom finished to medium reflectivity. The perforated ZIRA system lends an element of visual interest and added rainscreen functionality.

Zahner was selected to collaborate on the project due to the complexity of engineering required. The architect’s drawings outlined dozens of circular windows to be cut into the façade, mirroring parts of the preserved historic building, originally designed by Albert Ledner.