Brown | Zahner

Festival of Arts

August 15, 2016/in Exterior Architecture Museum, Performance Center Laguna Beach--California, Los Angeles--California Bauer Architects Brown, Red, Violet M 2015 /by cmorris

Festival of Arts and Pageant of the Masters, Laguna Beach

Combining both natural and built elements from the surrounding environment, the Festival of Arts renovations link both the City of Laguna Beach with its surrounding canyon landscape. Zahner’s scope consisted of fabricating a series of five stand-alone wall sections, the tallest of which rises to nearly 20’. These act as both a decorative feature wall and a place-holder for signage regarding various events and exhibitions.

The existing concrete signage wall was demolished as part of the proposed renovation. Bauer Architects sought to reimagine the wall as art. They started with the image of tree branches, a link to the forested setting using the words of the philosopher Seneca, “All art is but an imitation of nature”.

For the perforations, a standard circular punch shape was used to create imagery of trees on the form’s copper surface. These shapes were then cut from the metal using a punch. When assembled in unison, the panels read as an entire image. To create additional texture and add rigidity to the panels, a series of embossed and debossed bumps were applied to the surface.

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Festival of Arts

Growing a Stable Patina on Architectural Copper

The architects wanted to use a natural material with an aged look. Zahner’s Dirty Penny patinated copper was selected as the base material. This oxidized copper material was developed by Zahner to expedite the natural weathering process of copper. Rather than taking years to develop a rich, dark patina, the Dirty Penny process results in a stable patinated surface using a rapid chemical-based treatment. The panels for Festival of Arts were pre-patinated and shipped directly to the jobsite for installation.

The unsealed patinated panels will continue to age with time. The metal’s surface acts as a living protective barrier, similar to the way moss grows on stone. Unlike paint or anodization, which will deteriorate with time, the custom copper patina will continue to grow stronger as the surface oxidizes.

Manufacturing Accurately-Curved Architectural Forms

Creating the curvature for the panels proved to be a unique challenge. Some of the walls were derived from a single radius, while other sections included more than one radius in a single wall. All of these were tangent to one another. Due to the embossed and debossed bump pattern, the usual method of processing the entire sheet through a roll former could not be used. This compression would damage the bumps. Zahner’s solution was to crimp roll the top and bottom legs of each panel.

Crimp rolling the edges gave the sheets a gentle curve, but the process is not entirely precise. So to increase precision, Zahner also created a series of aluminum templates at the desired radius. Zahner was able to match the copper panels to the aluminum templates during the crimping process, resulting in a highly accurate architectural form.

The resulting geometry matches identically to the each of the radii provided in the architect’s model.

Simplifying the Concealed Attachments

Copper rolled angles were used as attachment hardware on the backs of each panel and fastened to existing mullions. In order to fit the curvature, these angles were also stretched to the appropriate radius. Coordination of fasteners to the copper rolled angles became key.

To disguise fasteners, Zahner assisted with coordinating the location for a series of aluminum “hats” on the mullions. Each piece of hat hardware lines up with a perforated hole. Fasteners were run through the perforations, to the back hardware. This allows for panels to be removed with ease, so that signage could be easily installed, and maintenance remains uncomplicated.

Designing concealed hardware is one of the advantages of using Zahner’s engineering and design team for projects like this. Contact Zahner to see what kinds of assistance we can provide for your project, or learn about how you can get your team started early with Zahner using Design Assist.

Dome on the Plaza

August 15, 2016/in Exterior Architecture Historic Kansas City Gastinger Walker Harden Brown, Orange, Red, Yellow M 2008 /by cmorris

The Dome on the Country Club Plaza

Working with Gastinger Walker Harden Architects and Highwood Properties, Zahner produced the subtly spiraling domed roof for Baja 600 Restaurant on the Country Club Plaza in Kansas City. Zahner designed, engineered, fabricated, and installed the Dome using zinc with custom patina.

The Dome on The Plaza uses Roano Zinc, a preweathered zinc with custom patina. The Roano Zinc surface is an aged patina whose variegated tones vary from panel to panel, creating an aged aesthetic suitable for both contemporary and historic architecture.

Domed roofs are complex feats of engineering, and this one is no different. Constructing the dome’s cladding required sophisticated planning and layout. Each row of panels is characterized by a unique panel shape, requiring over twenty panel types. Zahner engineers mapped the thirty foot diameter dome so that the complex surface would be easily installed.

Roano Zinc patina featured as part of the Dome on the Plaza.

Photograph of the Dome on the Plaza after decade of aging.

Roano Zinc-clad Dome on the Country Club Plaza during installation.

de Young Museum

August 15, 2016/in Exterior Architecture, Interior Architecture Museum San Francisco Bay Fong & Chan Architects, Herzog & de Meuron Brown, Gold, Green, Red XL 2005 /by cmorris

M. H. de Young Memorial Museum

Named for San Francisco newspaperman M. H. de Young, this building is a completely reworked redesign from the original museum, which opened in 1895 as an outgrowth of the California International Exposition of 1894. After the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989 which completely ravaged the original building’s structure, the de Young board began working to fund a restructuring of the building, and the resulting winner of the competition for its redesign in the late 1990’s was acclaimed Swiss architects, Jacques Herzog & Pierre de Meuron.

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.

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Craftsmanship in large buildings is supposed to be dead, killed by Modernist ideology and cost considerations. What this building says is that maybe craftsmanship has a high-tech future after all.

Time MagazineNone.

Aerial view of the de Young Museum in San Francisco, California

Aerial view of the de Young Museum roof.

Inverted Seam roof system and channel design for the de Young Museum roof

Outdoor cafe under the de Young Museum canopy awning

At the time, this mosaic algorithmic process was emerging, but was undeveloped in the use of perforated and embossed metal. Zahner assembled a team of software developers and engineers to assist in this technological advancement.

The architects came up with a photo taken pointed up through the trees, and in several parts of the museum, light filters through the perforated system of holes, revealing shadows similar in shape and form to those of actual trees. ZIRA technology was developed to streamline this complex series of variable holes in the copper, allowing engineers to run chosen imagery through the algorithmic system, translating it to the thousands of copper plates.

Source imagery and installed panel system for the ‘Children’s Entry’ at the de Young Museum.

Above left, the surface of the ‘Children’s Entry’ was created using imagery from a photograph provided by the architects (right). The vantage point looks up into a sky obscured by trees. Similarly, the section of the Museum featuring this surface was initially open, recreating the effect on metal. Since installation, the area has been covered for moisture control.

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… A sensual copper skin that will evolve over time.

Sarah Amelarauthor, Architectural Record..

Architects originally called for a light golden-hued appearance for the Museum. However, as the intentions evolved, a desire for the Museum to blend and emerge from its forested surroundings like an ancient indigenous structure.

De Young Museum cover feature in Architectural Record

The November, 2005 issue of "Architectural Record" magazine has placed the New de Young Museum on their cover and, in a section devoted to museum projects around the world [pages 104—115].

Patina transition over time on the de Young Museum

Zahner helped to guide this decision for the client. Understanding how copper alloys weather over time, and understanding the integrity and durability of the material is key to its selection process. Zahner brought the clients into the fold of this knowledge, educating the design team on how over the next few decades, the copper facade and roof would transition from its bright golden red, to a dark brown, to a black, and finally, after a decade or more, it will slowly emerge into earthy greens.

In clean air environments — which San Francisco generally has great air quality — this process can take much longer. Copper oxidizes quickly in polluted areas. In cleaner environments, this process could take twenty to thirty years.

The following information is a snapshot of the building statistics:

Area of copper panels on the building: 129,900 square feet of copper panels.
Area of copper on the roof cladding: 55,500 square feet of copper panels and 6,500 linear feet of custom battens.
Area of copper on the tower: 33,218 square feet of copper panels.
Number of panels — Main building: 5,757; Roof: 3,513; Tower: 1,845.
Number of perforations — Building: 920,699; Tower: 803,229
There are approximately 1,500,000 bumps of the surface. This includes the four levels of bumps that go in and four levels that come out. These bumps, along with the flat plane, results in nine different levels of surface texture.
Pounds of copper utilized. . .1,121,992. This translates too. . .2,201 cubic feet or 1 sheet of copper that is 1 meter wide by 21.6 miles long.
The 70,000 pounds of the custom alloy, custom bronze extrusions utilized for the tower system were also designed and engineered by Zahner.

Dayton Residence

August 15, 2016/in Exterior Architecture Residential Vail--Colorado James Dayton Design Brown M 2009 /by cmorris

Dayton Residence in Vail, Colorado

The Dayton Residence is a private mountain home conceived by the architects at James Dayton Design in Minneapolis. Completed in 2009, the project began as a renovation of an existing 70’s ski lodge and expanded into a new construction.

Zahner developed details and provide Solanum Steel, Zahner’s exclusive darkened weathering steel panel system. The variegated material provides improved performance over Cor-ten steel, which has a tendency to stain adjacent surfaces. Zahner provided engineering, fabrication, delivery, and installation for the project.

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Dayton Residence

Serenity at the Dayton Residence in Vail, Colorado.

Snow falls at the Dayton Residence in Vail, Colorado.

Drawing diagram of the Dayton Residence in Vail, Colorado.

Crosstown Substation

August 15, 2016/in Exterior Architecture Industrial Kansas City Pendulum James Woodfill Brown M 2013 /by cmorris

Crosstown Substation Renovation for the KCP&L

The architects at Pendulum developed a synthesizing design which combines elements of public art, architecture, and kinetic motion-based visual arts to create a low-profile barrier wall wrapping the KCP&L Substation.

Prior to the new design, the corner of 18th and Locust was deteriorating. KCP&L replaced the wall with a new design, including commissioned artwork, that would reflect the Crossroads’ artistic community spirit.
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The winning design by Pendulum included a space for the light artist James Woodfill to create a kinetic display. As the sun sets, an animated display of lights takes over: 10,500 color-changing LED lights alternate to create an illusion of motion, powered by 117 solar panels.

Photograph of the Crosstown Substation west facade at dusk.

Crosstown Substation designed by Pendulum, featuring Solanum weathering steel metalwork.

Custom cylinder sidewalk lights cast unique shadows through perforations.

The Crosstown Substation, featuring a prepatinated weathering steel custom wall system.

Detail of the Crosstown Substation during daylight.

Manufacturing the Weathering Steel Facade for Pendulum Architects

Zahner was brought on to provide a weathering steel surface that would endure all four seasons in Kansas City, as well as provide a worn steel aeshtetic with minimal corrosion and staining of adjacent surfaces. Using the Solanum Steel process, Zahner was able to provide a warm steel patina. Zahner also worked closely with the project team to provide all structural steel and fabrication required for the project.

Rendering of Crosstown Substation, designed by Pendulum Architects in Kansas City.

Mockup of Crosstown Substation, installed on-site at the previous park.

History of the Crosstown Substation

Originally the KCP&L station was the site of the Holmes Square Park. Designed by George Kessler, the park was originally opened in 1897, the same year A. Zahner Company was founded by Andrew Zahner. The park was directed by Elenore Canny, who was sworn in by the Kansas City Police Department in 1910, becoming the first woman to serve and protect as a police officer in Kansas City, Missouri, and also one of the first female police officers in America.

KCP&L has decided to place a plaque on the gate of the substation commemorating the Holmes Square Park and the accomplishments of Elenor Canny. The material and construction of the plaque was generously donated by A. Zahner Company.

Project Team

Architect/Designer: Pendulum
General Contractor: Turner Construction, Inc.
Lighting Consultant: Derek Porter Studio
Structural Engineer: Du Bois Consultants
Commissioned Artist: James Woodfill
Steel Contractor/Fabricator/Supplier: Zahner

Awards and Recognition

2014 EDC Cornerstone Award Winner for Energy
2014 Kansas City Chapter AGC Building Excellence Award

Clyde Frazier NYC

August 15, 2016/in Interior Architecture Restaurant New York City Morphosis Black, Blue, Blue-grey, Brown, Charcoal, Gold, Green, Grey, Indigo, Light blue, Magenta, Orange, Red, Silver, Violet, White, Yellow M 2012 /by cmorris

Clyde Frazier’s Wine & Dine in New York City

Clyde Frazier’s Wine & Dine is a new construction high-end sports bar and eatery designed by Morphosis. The space features a Zahner-manufactured ceiling, made using generative design and automated fabrication.

Designed by Morphosis for NBA Champion and former New York Knicks Player Walt Clyde Frazier, this New York City restaurant expands a full city block in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood. A swarm of suit jackets dominates the central corridor of Clyde Frazier’s Wine and Dine, a 10,000 square foot experience which mixes American and Asian cuisines.

Zahner provided the ceiling architectural feature. This ceiling is made up of custom cut and folded aluminum plates, 544 in total. The aluminum plates are printed from photographs of Mr. Frazier’s suit jackets. These parts are segmented into six unique shapes, where are placed at intervals of increasing distance. This interval placement creates the illusion that every part is unique.

Clyde Frazier's Wine & Dine in New York City.

The colors in the model categorize the panels according to breaks and sizes. Between the differing anchor placements, prints, panel sizes, and panel shapes, all 544 aluminum panels ended up being unique.

Even more complex were the ribs which held them in place. Because the panels were anchored at different angles, every drill hole had to be custom placed. Thus, each of the 69 ribs had 6 segments for a total of 463 segments, each with 3 unique faces.

3D model for Clyde Frazier's Wine and Dine.

“The transformative feature in the room, however, is suspended from the ceiling, where a 170-foot-long assemblage of colorful, patterned, flat and folded aluminum fins floats over the dining area, bar, and lounge. Morphosis found the stripes, plaids, and prints for this polychromatic sculptural reef in Frazier’s closets.

The architects photographed their contents and, working with Zahner’s metal fabricators, digitally printed images for a film adhesive applied to 544 aluminum panels of six shapes. The palette varies from blue to brown-gold to charcoal, with red painted undersides enhancing the gestalt. ‘It’s mesmerizing,’ says Frazier.” — Suzanne Stephens, Architectural Record.

Five threaded rods support each rib. The central columns do not hold the weight of the panels.

Aluminum fabricated-metal forms with custom printed and mounted graphics.

Installation process at Clyde Frazier's Wine and Dine

Installation of the printed aluminum fabrications.

Brown University APM

August 15, 2016/in Exterior Architecture Education Providence--Rhode Island ARO: Architecture Research Office Brown M 2015 /by cmorris

Brown University Applied Math Building

The new building for Brown University’s Division of Applied Mathematics was completed in 2015. The surface of the building is clad with a custom layout of shingles in Zahner’s Solanum Steel, a preweathered patina on weathering steel alloy. This 13,000 square foot structure offers additional space for faculty, students and staff.

Zahner was specified on the job by the designers at Architectural Research Office (ARO), who had previously worked with the Solanum Steel material on a residence in Telluride, CO. Adapting a similar shingled system for the new design at Brown University, the designers came up with a small tabletop mockup for the layout. This mockup allowed for rationalization of the overlap pattern, and the ability to figure out the layout early on.

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Brown University APM

Brown University Applied Math Building, clad in Zahner Solanum Weathering Steel.

Designing the Facade System for Brown University

The project was already streamlined with cut lists ready and Zahner in the specs by the time it arrived in estimating. Because Zahner was clearly listed as the source for the finish, the construction management team at Shawmut knew who to contact, and were offered pricing in a quick and timely manner.

The cut list contained six different profiles for the shingles. These varying profiles were arranged in a stagger, with 2” overlaps to conceal face fasteners. The Architect also had determined their desired stagger for the layout, which would alternate overlaps at every course for the two layout options. Zahner worked with Shawmut Construction to coordinate the locations for the ¼” fastener holes, and provided shop drawings confirming exact dimensions for each of the profiles.

West elevation of the custom shingle layout for Brown Univeristy Applied Math Building.

ARO designed a custom shingle layout and created a physical model.

Two patterns for the custom shingle system.

Construction drawings showing the six shingle profiles for Brown University.

Bowdoin Museum of Art

August 15, 2016/in Exterior Architecture Museum Brunswick--Maine Machado & Silvetti Brown, Gold M 2007 /by cmorris

Bowdoin College Museum of Art

The Bowdoin College Museum of Art renovation by Machado & Silvetti features a custom Zahner patinated surface and structural elements at its entry.

The new building entrance resembles a glass box on three sides, with the remaining portion clad in a Zahner fabricated naval brass with a custom bronze patina. The patinated metal panels continue from the exterior to the interior angled soffit, completing a dramatic entry for the museum’s 19th Century collection.

Related Project

Cincinnati Tower

The tower has a number of symbolic aspects in its design. Its square base forms the letters U and C on alternating sides. Above these letters, the main wooden shafts rise in the form of hammers. These motifs reflect the fraternity's motto, "The torch burns; the hammers ring." At the top, a beam of light shines through a stylized stainless steel torch and changes colors through the use of a computer program.

Basrah Sports City

August 15, 2016/in Exterior Architecture Arena & Stadium Asia, Basra--Iraq, International, Middle East HOK Brown L, XL 2012 /by cmorris

Sports City Stadium in Basra, Iraq

Designed by 360 Architecture (now HOK), the new Basrah Sport City Center is part of a larger sports complex that aims to boost the city as a sporting center in the Middle East. Zahner provided the perforated weathering steel exterior panels. Zahner also provided a number of interior metal surfaces.

The perforated steel was a pre-weathered Solanum Steel, a Zahner-manufactured weathering steel (corten) product. The product was designed for architectural projects requiring a stable finish and patina with minimal staining of adjacent surfaces.

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Basrah Sports City

Timelapse of the Basra Stadium Mockup in Kansas City.

PHOTO © A. ZAHNER COMPANY

Arkansas House

August 15, 2016/in Exterior Architecture, Interior Architecture Residential Northwest Arkansas Marlon Blackwell Architects Brown, Orange, Red M 2004 /by cmorris

Private Residence in Northwest Arkansas

This major home renovation in Northwestern Arkansas by architect Marlon Blackwell Architects is clad in an accelerated weathering steel facade system manufactured by Zahner.

The residential project’s interior wood and metal surfaces act as an interior liner to the building’s rough-to-the-touch Solanum Steel exterior architectural monitors. Flooring of rift-sawn cherry and walnut also act to form an interior liner. Taut and highly crafted, this refined surface acts as an interior liner to the exterior monitors clad in weathering steel shingles.

The architect’s challenge for the project was to reassemble a fire-damaged home while introducing possibilities for the transformation of the house’s spatial character. The design was defined in three weeks and the details were settled after construction began. The architect could work only in areas damaged by the fire, leaving the rest untouched for insurance purposes.