Violet | Zahner

Davidson-Gundy Alumni Center at UT Dallas

Davidson-Gundy Alumni Center: The University of Texas at Dallas

Overland Partners designed the exterior for the Davidson-Gundy Alumni Center at UT Dallas to evoke the movement of a comet in homage to the school’s mascot. Zahner collaborated with the architect and contractor JE Dunn to develop a perforated system informed by orbital paths.

Exterior of Davidson-Gundy Alumni Center featuring Louvered ZIRA perforated panels.

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Metaphorically, this motif draws an analogy between comets, which move away from the sun but are ultimately pulled back by the gravitational force of the sun or a planet, and alumni, who graduate to pursue a new direction, but retain their attachment and loyalty to the university.

Overland PartnersArchitectat Overland Partners

Exterior of Davidson-Gundy Alumni Center at night.

Perforated aluminum panels featuring the Zahner patented Louvered ZIRA™ technique wrap three sides of the building’s second story and the upper portion of the interior lobby. Circular perforated tabs in varying orientation create a pattern that captures and reflects light, creating the illusion of movement.

Detail: Zahner patented Louvered ZIRA perforated panels. Color-shifting paint by Valspar.

Each panel is coated in color-shifting paint by Valspar, lending an additional layer of ethereality to the building. The surface changes depending on one’s vantage point as well as with the varying light throughout the day. The panelized system uses the Zahner proprietary Drop & Lock™ system for easy and secure installation.

Interior aluminum panels featuring Zahner patented Louvered Zira technique.

The panel system adds interest to the building’s exte
rior and interior features while also providing shade for the building’s users. The Davidson-Gundy Alumni Center opened in September 2017 to facilitate active connections among the current student body and alumni through space for large and small-scale events.

Louvered Zira panels create shade for interior spaces.

Interior shadows cast from exterior panels

Gulch Crossing

January 4, 2017/in Exterior Architecture, Interior Architecture Highrise, LEED, Retail & Commerce Nashville--Tennessee Earl Swensson Associates Brown, Violet S 2015 /by cmorris

Gulch Crossing Development in Nashville, Tennessee

In a design by Earl Swensson Associates (ESa), the Gulch Crossing development features Zahner patinated weathering steel in both its interior and exterior spaces. The dark patina on the weathering steel surface frames the building’s wood canopy, and provides a backdrop for the water feature at its entrance.

To produce the interior and exterior steel, the A588 alloy weathering steel was processed by Zahner with a custom patina process. This Solanum Steel process yielded 3000 ft² of 3mm weathering steel with the Solanum Steel patina, which was supplied to John W McDougall, Metal Fabricators. The Nashville-based company completed the metalwork and installation.

The site sits between a popular restaurant, retail, and entertainment district and a rail yard that was once the place where visitors first arrived to the city, standing where the rail lines shift direction to reconcile with the city grid. The rail line expression is reinforced with a linear infinity edge fountain running the length of the 100’ weathered steel and wood “boxcar” frame that extends beyond the building to create a sheltered outdoor plaza.

Interior weathering steel wall panels for the service desk at Gulch Crossing.

Weathering steel canopy for Gulch Crossing in Nashville.

Weathering steel and wood canopy crosses into the interior space.

Gulch Crossing provides a high walkability score, an uncommon feature for similar mid-rise buildings.

Weathering steel water feature backdrop for the Gulch Crossing entrance.

Weathering steel at sunset for the Gulch Crossing canopy.

AECOM Cleveland Office Interior

December 6, 2016/in Interior Architecture Workplace Cleveland--Ohio AECOM Gold, Orange, Red, Violet S 2016 /by cmorris

AECOM Corporate Office at Penton Media Building

AECOM Buildings and Places division was responsible for developing the new offices at the Penton Media Building in downtown Cleveland, Ohio. The design team used Zahner ImageWall to develop a bold interior panel system for its foyer.

For its interior entrance, it was important to establish a rich and yet contemporary setting. The design team selected Dirty Penny, a copper alloy with custom patina developed by Zahner. The material has an iridescent appearance, a result of its interference effect from the mineralized patina oxide layer on its surface. In addition to perforations in the metal surface, the designers went one step further. The copper metal system is further punctuated by a series of custom emboss/deboss punches pressed into the surface of the panels.

AECOM Reception area at the Cleveland office

Detail of the embossed Dirty Penny surface used for the Cleveland office.

Detail of the AECOM Reception area interior metal panels

Team Disney

November 8, 2016/in Exterior Architecture Workplace Anaheim--California, Los Angeles--California Frank Gehry Partners Blue, Green, Violet XL 1995, 1996 /by cmorris

disneyland theme park offices, Anaheim

A pillowed facade of iridescent green, blue and violet adorns the surface of the Team Disney building in Anaheim, California. Designed by Frank Gehry Partners, the building serves as the administrative offices of the Disneyland theme park.

Zahner provided the custom green interference-coated stainless steel. The iridescent surface changes from blue to green to violet when viewed at varying angles. The addition of an embossed diamond pattern creates a quilted, pillow-like effect.

At the time it was constructed, it was the largest green stainless steel surface ever produced. Completion of the structure marks the first time all administrative staff have been located in one facility since the park opened in 1955.

“We’ll get more work done in the hallways than we did in the conference rooms. This finally brings it all together.”
— Disneyland President Paul Pressler.

Related Surface

Team Disney

North-side of the Team Disney Anaheim building.

Detail of the interference stainless steel at Team Disney Anaheim.

View from across the highway at Team Disney Anaheim.

Suzanne Roberts Theatre

August 15, 2016/in Art & Sculpture, Exterior Architecture Performance Center, Sculpture Philadelphia--Pennsylvania Kieran Timberlake Gold, Red, Violet M 2007 /by cmorris

The Philadelphia Theatre Company’s dynamic Marquee signage

Completed in 2007, the Suzanne Roberts Theatre was designed by KieranTimberlake and features signage manufactured by Zahner.

Named for the former actress, playwright, and director, Suzanne Roberts Theatre is part of the initiative to enhance Philadelphia’s Avenue of the Arts. The building’s new marquee signage provides a striking statement about the quality of the arts program while maintaining the existing building and providing cover as an entrance soffit.

Related Project

Kieran Timberlake Office Stair

For the firm’s 63,000 ft² office, Zahner created a custom floating stairway. Connecting the entrance lobby and lab area with the office and meeting spaces, the painted red steel stairway is a feat of form and function.

Suzanne Roberts Theatre in Philadelphia.

KieranTimberlake contracted Zahner to provide engineering and fabrication for the dynamic shape of the facade signage. Working through an intitial Design Assist phase, the project was developed for digital fabrication.

To produce the sculptural form, the marquee was engineered and fabricated using ZEPPS Technology, the Zahner system for building complex, curving sculptural forms. The technology enables fast installation, installed in just a few assemblies. Each assembly is made up of structural aluminum fins and ribs which are prefabricated in the Zahner facility offsite. These assemblies were then clad in a number of sheet metal skinned surfaces. KieranTimberlake worked with Zahner to select a iridescent stainless steel surface which provides the sign’s unique coloring.

Detail of the Suzanne Roberts Theatre in Philadelphia.

CAD Diagrams showing individual Zahner assembly parts

ZEPPS structure for Suzanne Roberts Theatre prior to cladding

ZEPPS structure, clad in stainless steel skin with adhesive protective layer

Two assemblies made using ZEPPS in the Zahner yard prior to shipment to Philadelphia

Pueblo Library

August 15, 2016/in Exterior Architecture Library Pueblo--Colorado Anderson Mason Dale, Antoine Predock Architect PC Black, Violet L 2003 /by cmorris

Robert Hoag Rawlings Public Library

The Robert Hoag Rawlings Public Library in Pueblo, Colorado is an Antoine Predock-designed building featuring Zahner fabrication. The library is a new construction project which provides 109,000 SF of facility for residents of the Colorado town.

Built on the site of the original library, the design by Predock rises five stories to allow view of surrounding mountains and the Arkansas Valley. The building incorporates portions of the existing library and spans across Bates Lane to additional property to the South.

Zahner provided the interior and exterior copper metalwork with a preweathered patina. The building’s dark patinated copper tones allow it to absorb into its natural regional landscape.

Related Surface

Pueblo Library

Manufacturing Details for Pueblo Library

The copper wall panels made by Zahner are 30 inches wide by 142 inches tall and number 1545 wall panels and 739 soffit. The building elevations were completely laid out as a digital model for accurate layout of custom panel expansion joints.

A total of 1,545 wall panels and 739 soffit panels were provided by Zahner. The copper panels were custom manufactured from 1.5mm thick copper plates and installed using the Inverted Seam Wall System.

The facade is clad in a darkened custom patinated panel system using the Dirty Penny patina on copper, an artistic patina with significant variation.

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.

Related Surface

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.

MoPop Museum

August 15, 2016/in Exterior Architecture Museum Seattle--Washington Frank Gehry Partners, LMN Architects Gold, Light blue, Red, Silver, Violet, White XL 2000 /by cmorris

Museum of Pop Culture (MoPOP)

Jimi Hendrix inspired the name, Frank Gehry designed the project, and Zahner produced the stunning curvilinear forms and structure. Residing in the shadow of the Seattle Space Needle, the Experience Music Project (now the Museum of Pop Culture, or MoPOP) was completed in 2000.

Gehry’s unique design required a creative approach to engineering and fabrication. The Museum was one of the first projects to use ZEPPS, the Zahner technology for producing curvilinear and complex structures. The process resulted in 3,300 unique structural assemblies clad in 21,000 metal sheets — for a total surface area of more than 140,000 square feet of curving metal. No two sheets and no two panel assemblies are the same.

Surface techniques are similarly varied, and include Angel Hair stainless steel, red interference-coated stainless steel and fluorocarbon-coated aluminum.

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The most complex exterior skin ever devised for a building.

Civil Engineering MagazineSteve M. Huey.

Constructing the Building Envelope

Working with Gehry’s design, the Zahner team developed a process for reducing curves into large, pre-fabricated assemblies which could then be easily shipped and rapidly installed. Thus, the Zahner Engineered Profiled Panel System (ZEPPS) came into being.

At its core, the ZEPPS process consists of an aluminum support structure, clad in a layer of sheet metal. A final metal layer (of the designer’s selection) completes the assembly and is usually installed onsite. The ZEPPS process efficiently produces complex forms with minimal waste, reducing a building’s ecological footprint.

Since the EMP Museum’s completion, the ZEPPS system has undergone several iterations, growing more powerful, accurate, and refined. The process continues to be the preferred method for manufacturing sculptural form.

El Paso Courthouse

August 15, 2016/in Exterior Architecture Government, LEED El Paso--Texas Antoine Predock Architect PC Black, Charcoal, Gold, Violet L 2010 /by cmorris

El Paso United States Federal Courthouse

Designed by Antoine Predock Architects, the award-winning courthouse in El Paso features a Zahner-manufactured copper facade. Officially dedicated in early September of 2010, the construction of the courthouse was made possible by American Recovery and Reinvestment Act investments by GSA.

The courthouse has been recognized around the United States for both its architectural qualities and its environmentally innovative design.

The building won the Texas Downtown Association’s President’s Award for Best New Construction, which recognizes construction excellence in downtown or commercial districts. Judges were impressed by the use of materials, which paid homage to the copper industry of El Paso and how the design of the building connected with the surrounding downtown.

North elevation of the El Paso Federal Courthouse.

Detail of the Special Proceedings Court at El Paso's Federal Courthouse.

El Paso Courthouse viewed from the northwest.

The building’s mass is largely composed of two materials. Limestone, quarried locally in Texas, and copper, a material which references the local smelter. Zahner provided engineering-design, as well as fabrication and installation of the copper panels.

The building was certified as LEED Silver by the U.S. Green Building Council. Its design makes use of innovative ventilation and air conditioning; computerized heating systems; lighting and utility metering to conserve energy; window glazing; energy-efficient Energy Star products; as well as interior and exterior elements made from recycled materials.

Building the El Paso Federal Courthouse

Zahner was was responsible for the custom cladding of the El Paso Courthouse. This included the engineering, fabrication, and installation of the red copper facade.

As the installers began cladding the building, the material began to blacken in areas as intended. This is caused by the oxidation of the surface, the natural process of patination on copper.

El Paso Federal Courthouse during construction.

The patina begins to form on the surface of the recently completed courthouse.

As the metal oxidizes, the material will go through the stages of copper weathering. After a year, the appearance matches the Dirty Penny patina, and the surface will continue to age, evolve, and change in color.

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.