Exterior Architecture

Miu Miu Aoyama

January 4, 2017/in Exterior Architecture, Interior Architecture Flagship, Retail & Commerce, Storefront Asia, International, Japan, Tokyo--Japan Herzog & de Meuron Gold M 2014 /by cmorris

iu Miu Aoyama in Tokyo, Japan

Miu Miu Aoyama is a luxury retail building in Tokyo designed by Herzog & de Meuron. The building exterior features Zahner-manufactured copper bullnose details with dense custom perforations and round zig-zag seams. Zahner also provided the interior copper panels with the same bumped copper aesthetic.

The project was developed for Miuccia Prada who leads the Paris-based Miu Miu brand. Located in the Aoyama district in Tokyo, the project is the latest in a neighborhood that has become known for architectural innovation. Across the street is the Prada Tokyo Epicenter also designed by Herzog & de Meuron. The Miu Miu Aoyama represents a stark contrast to the prior work. Its subtle reflective exterior disguises its rich copper soffit and interior.

THE DE YOUNG MUSEUM IN SAN FRANCISCO. ZAHNER OWNED THE ENTIRE EXTERIOR COPPER SKIN AND GLAZING.

Related Project

de Young Museum

Herzog & de Meuron developed the idea of a variably perforated screen exterior which would mirror the green foliage and forestry of the surrounding Golden Gate Park, San Francisco's central park. The architects worked with Zahner whose engineers and software specialists developed a system which would allow unique perforation and patterned dimples, variably sized and placed throughout the exterior. This included near 8000 unique facade panels — the collective whole which formed patterns of light as seen through trees. This was the first iteration of the Zahner Interpretive Relational Algorithmic Process, or the ZIRA Process.

Miu Miu Aoyama in Tokyo, Japan. Designed by Herzog & de Meuron.

John Olver Transit Center

January 4, 2017/in Exterior Architecture LEED, Workplace Greenfield--Massachusetts Charles Rose Architects Brown M /by cmorris

John W. Olver Transit Center

The new transit center was designed by Charles Rose Architects and features Zahner’s design-engineering and fabrication of the natural weathering copper facade. The facade includes intricately cut perforations integrated as signage, which continues around the building’s surface as light filtering copper-screen panels designed to weather and age naturally.

The train can be seen above entering the south side of the Franklin Regional Transit Authority, where it currently runs once per day in each direction along the Knowledge Corridor, from Washington D.C. to the border of Canada. The rail improvements allow for trains to travel at speeds of 80MPH.

The building has won six awards: American Architecture Award; The Chicago Athenaeum AIA New England Design Award; North American Copper in Architecture Awards; Society of American Registered Architects / NY Design Excellence Award; The Boston Society of Architects Design Honor Award; and the ACEC 2013 Gold Award.

First train rolls into Greenfield

Doha Student Housing

January 4, 2017/in Exterior Architecture Education, LEED Asia, Doha--Qatar, International, Middle East Burns & McDonnell Blue-grey, Silver L 2012 /by cmorris

Qatar Foundation Education City Student Housing Complex

The student housing complex for the Qatar Foundation’s Education City initiative is a large scale project consisting of two campuses. The complex is designed by Burns & McDonnell who brought in Zahner to provide various metalwork in titanium and stainless steel.

The design for the complex incorporates local culture with modern technology to create a unique, world-class facility for the students of Education City. A traditional Islamic village, consisting of five neighborhoods joined together by a village street leading to a central plaza, inspired the architectural design.

Zahner’s scope was fabrication and furnish-only, providing the spiral centerpiece for the campus. Local contractor teams installed the panels. The building complex is energy independent, generating its own power. This is the first student housing complex in the world to achieve LEED Platinum certification.

Related Project

Sidra Medical Center

Zahner produced the three massive 'wings' which salute the sky using ZEPPS, Zahner's process for designing and manufacturing complex structural forms. The subtle dual curvature required precise engineering and intelligent organization of components.

Qatar Foundation Education City Student Housing Complex

New England Aquarium

December 30, 2016/in Exterior Architecture, Interior Architecture Museum, Renovation Boston--Massachusetts Schwartz/Silver Silver L 1996 /by cmorris

New England Aquarium in Boston

Founded in 1967, the New England Aquarium in Boston set a precedent for many future aquariums. Its urban waterfront setting served as a tourist destination, while providing an educational resource to its community and region. The original building was designed by Cambridge Seven, providing site planning, architecture, exhibit design, and all interior design for the original New England Aquarium building.

In 1996, Zahner worked for Schwartz/Silver Architects to provide the building’s new western wing. The glass and steel addition includes the harbor seal exhibit on the public plaza, ticketing booth, changing exhibit galleries, gift shop, cafe, and lobby. Zahner provided custom stainless steel “fishscale” metal panels using custom wheel finish.

The new facility is a distinct addition to the old concrete building, celebrating its harbor-side location with stainless steel and glass additions. The shiny surfaces reference both the scales of sea creatures as well as moving water and its reflectivity.

911 Memorial Overland Park

December 30, 2016/in Exterior Architecture Memorial Overland Park--Kansas SFS Architecture Brown, Gold M 2015 /by cmorris

Remember, Educate, and Honor

The 911 Memorial at Overland Park, installed at the entrance to the city’s Fire Training Center, reminds first responders of the ultimate sacrifice their service may demand. The memorial was designed by SFS Architecture and includes artifacts and custom-fabricated bronze and steel artworks provided by Zahner.

A 14-foot, 2.5 ton steel beam from ground zero stands at the memorial’s center. Four bronze panels to beam’s West tell the story of the four downed flights, and a bronze memorial listing the names of those who perished on September 11th sits to the East. A weeping wall fountain, representing survivors, stands to the North while granite tiles pulled from the World Trade Center after the attacks pave the South entrance.

The memorial’s three-fold mission is to remember the victims, educate visitors, and honor the heroism by those who served on September 11th, 2001.

Memorial shows the original I-Beams from the World Trade Center in NYC

The Memorial’s History

In 2009, Overland Park firefighter Trevor Miller and Captain Paul Bishoff submitted an application to the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey for a piece of steel from the fallen World Trade Center towers. After learning of the application’s acceptance, more than a dozen companies and individuals volunteered time and resources to build the 9/11 Memorial.

Diesel Chicago

December 30, 2016/in Exterior Architecture Flagship, Storefront Chicago--Illinois Bam Studio, Knauer Incorporated Black, Blue-grey, Grey, Indigo S 2008 /by cmorris

Diesel Concept Store on Rush Street

Façade panels for the Diesel Store in Chicago were designed by BAMDesign with Michilli Construction. The designer developed a panel layout with exposed fasteners and engaged Zahner to assist in developing a distressed surface for the store front.

The result was a unique, blackened steel patina created by the Zahner team. Hand-applied to 80 panels of 12ga galvanized steel, the custom patina architecturally conveys the look of Diesel’s distressed jeans. The custom patina was also applied in smaller scope within the project interior.

Initially dark and mottled in appearance, the exterior metalwork has naturally oxidized over time, taking on a gray tone in reaction to the urban environment.

Custom patinated galvanized steel panels with visible fasteners on the exterior of the Diesel Chicago store.

PHOTO © A. ZAHNER COMPANY.

Detail view of the blackened steel panels on the Diesel Chicago store's facade.

PHOTO © A. ZAHNER COMPANY.

The custom patina developed for the project featured black & brown hues on galvanized steel.

PHOTO © A. ZAHNER COMPANY.

Natural oxidation results in the panels developing a gray tone.

PHOTO © A. ZAHNER COMPANY.

Detail view of the custom patina.

PHOTO © A. ZAHNER COMPANY.

The custom blackened steel patination and natural oxidation reflect the distressed look of Diesel jeans.

PHOTO © A. ZAHNER COMPANY.

Detail view of the blackened steel panels, showing the effects of natural oxidation and the resulting "distressed" appearance.

PHOTO © A. ZAHNER COMPANY.

Bloomberg Center

December 30, 2016/in Exterior Architecture Education, LEED New York City Morphosis Gold, Green L 2017 Featured /by cmorris

Bloomberg Center at Cornell Tech

Bloomberg Center is the flagship building on Cornell Tech’s Roosevelt Campus in New York City. The Morphosis-designed building features a louver-perforated skin manufactured by Zahner. The double-skin facade fits into the building’s Net Zero energy plan to operate as a self-sufficient and energy-efficient building. The center is also targeting LEED Platinum Certification.

Hacking a Robot to make Louvered Facades

In the Summer of 2015, Zahner’s ShopFloor team was tasked with developing several methods for louvered perforations to create picotage-effects for architectural metal.

Detail of the louvered perforation patterns on color-shift iridescent painted aluminum panels.

Perforation patterns on color-shift iridescent painted aluminum panels.

Image-perforated metal with color-shift iridescent painted aluminum.

Detail of the perforated metal facade during construction.

Color-shifting painted aluminum moves between bronze and green color-tones.

Related Project

Gates Hall at Cornell

The project's facade is designed using generative processes developed by Morphosis. Its unique appearance also serves the building's environment performance, reducing heat gain while providing natural light into the offices and classrooms.

Mission Bay Parking

December 30, 2016/in Exterior Architecture Parking Structure San Francisco Bay WRNS Studio L 2009 /by cmorris

Mission Bay Block 27 Parking Structure

Mission Bay Block 27 is a parking structure serving the UCSF community of San Francisco. Featuring a facade by Zahner, the WRNS Studio design is a noted work of architecture for parking structures.

Located in the Mission Bay Block 27 of San Francisco, this design by WRNS Studio for Alexandria Real Estate, houses 1,420 parking spaces on seven elevated levels. The structure features a metal screen with perforated imagery of California’s redwood forests. This facade was design-engineered by the Design Assist Group and produced by Zahner.

WRNS Studio desired an abstract pattern composed of four distinct oval cut-outs. They provided tree imagery and Zahner Design Engineers processed the imagery into the myriad of circular shapes to abstract the form. For the surface, the firm decided on a perforated bronze-anodized aluminum cladding, which covers the entirety of the metal scope for the garage.

Related Project

Contemporary Jewish Museum

3,028 sheets of blue iridescent cross-fire interference stainless steel clad the surface of the museum, which is formed in the shape modeled off of the Hebrew script for 'L'Chaim' which translates 'To Life'.

Mission Bay Block 27 Parking Structure at Alexandria.

Detail of the perforated aluminum facade system from within the garage.

Engineering drawing of the perforated facade layout used on the San Francisco parking structure.

How WRNS Created its Mosaic-Perforated Metal Facade

The aluminum’s punch-pattern was generated using a photograph of foliage. The image was run through several computer processes to rapidly produce the millions of custom perforated panels. Note: Zahner now offers an online tool for creating perforated metal panels at ImageWall for ShopFloor. This computer-to-machine language translation runs on the ZIRA™ Technology, a patented process (* Patent No. 7,212,688 B2 – May, 2007) for translating the architect’s imagery into pixelized metal, perforated and/or bumped panels.

This project was an experimental use of the ZIRA™ Process, as the individual punched shapes were integral to the project. Instead of the typical round and square punches, the designer selected four elliptical punch patterns which were custom-manufactured to complete the surface of the screen-wall. The ZIRA™ Technology allows architects, designers, and engineers to transfer an image onto the surface of metal using physical processes such as perforation, bumped and dimpled surface patterns, as well as waterjet cut patterns and other physical alterations.

Mockup of the WRNS concept, punched on aluminum plate metal.

Detail of the perforated zigzag aluminum system used to cool and ventilate the school's parking garage.

Maggie’s Centre

December 30, 2016/in Exterior Architecture Healthcare, Hospitality Dundee--United Kingdom, Europe, International Frank Gehry Partners Silver M 2003 /by cmorris

Maggie’s Centre in Dundee, Scotland

Architect Frank Gehry’s first building completed in the United Kingdom, Maggie’s Dundee is a unique building featuring Zahner metalwork. The facility serves cancer patients in Scotland, and provides a caring environment for the patients and families during recovery.

Maggie’s Dundee is among the first of the centers designed and built for Maggie Keswick Jencks, who died of breast cancer in 1995. Jencks dreamed of a place where cancer patients could be treated as human beings, a center built around a kitchen, with books and caring staff. She never lived to see this dream realized. After her passing, her husband, architectural critic Peter Jencks, played a key role in commissioning and advocating the first center in

The Centre in Dundee, Scotland is the third such center. Designed by Frank Gehry Partners, the architect donated his services and the project was completed in 2003. Today there are over a dozen Maggie’s Centres all over the United Kingdom, designed by architects from Zaha Hadid to Daniel Libeskind.

This project involves a labyrinth in the structures front yard, and an elaborately curved stainless steel roof. Zahner donated labor and fabricated the stainless steel roof at cost, which was then shipped to Scotland and installed by local labor. The project was completed in the same year as Bard College, also produced by Frank Gehry Partners with Zahner.

Maggie's Dundee in Scotland, United Kingdom

The Ames Library

December 30, 2016/in Exterior Architecture Education Bloomington--Illinois Shepley Bulfinch Richardson Grey L 2002 /by cmorris

at Illinois Wesleyan University

Zahner worked with the architects at Shepley Bulfinch Richardson and Abbott, to manufacture a new roof for the Ames Library at Wesleyan University. The double-locking standing seam panel system was fabricated using lead-coated copper for its historic construction. The $25.7 million facility opened in January 2002 and remains a symbol of Illinois Wesleyan’s achievements and aspirations.

“It is no exaggeration to say that the faculty of Illinois Wesleyan regards the building of a new library as the final, and finest, achievement of our evolution into a distinctive national liberal arts college.” – Robert Bray, the R. Forrest Colwell Professor of English