New York City | Zahner

40 Bond Street

40 Bond Street in New York City

Designed by Herzog & de Meuron with Handel Architects, 40 Bond Street is an Ian Schrager luxury residence located in the NoHo District of Manhattan. Zahner provided the building’s cladding in pre-patinated copper and mirror polish stainless steel.

The building is the first residential project in the United States designed by Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron. The residence is also the firm’s first building in New York City. The copper and stainless steel were formed as bell-shapes which adorn the facade of the building. The reflective stainless steel sits behind a layer of cast glass, creating an intriguing light effect behind the facade’s glass exterior.

Since its completion in 2007, the building 40 Bond Street has become an important architectural icon in New York City. The building has influenced the current generation of architectural developments, influencing the design of luxury residences across the city.

PHOTO © A. ZAHNER COMPANY.

PHOTO © A. ZAHNER COMPANY.

PHOTO © A. ZAHNER COMPANY.

Viewed from certain angles, the curved glass reflects the stainless steel underneath, making them nearly as reflective as chrome. From other points of view, the glass reads simply as glass, which, because of its unconventional application, is enough to stop passersby in their tracks. “We wanted the building to look like it was shrink-wrapped in glass,” according to Ashesh Saheba of Handel Architects in an interview in Metals in Construction.

The elevation of the rear facade the facade of the front. However, instead of the stainless steel and glass, the north facade uses blackened copper. The custom copper rear facade matches the bell-shaped mullion shapes of the glass front.

Over the decades, copper will slowly evolve, developing a green patina, a protective oxidization layer which hardens on the surface. In this sense, the building will eventually come to match the tonality of the front facade, unifying aesthetics over the years.

PATINATED COPPER ON THE 40 BOND STREET'S NORTH ELEVATION.

PHOTO © A. ZAHNER COMPANY.

Patinated copper on the building's north elevation.

PHOTO © A. ZAHNER COMPANY.

200 Eleventh

August 15, 2016/in Exterior Architecture Highrise New York City Selldorf Architects Brown, Silver L 2010 /by cmorris

200 Eleventh Avenue in Chelsea

The 19-story building is supported by a 3-story plinth which serves as a base for the 16 stories above it. This base’s material palette and massing (terracotta cladding and blackened steel window frames) is in harmony with the surrounding industrial buildings, and also serves to set the tone for the less subtle forms on the tower.

The tower’s design sensibility builds on the aesthetics of the neighboring areas. Architect Annabelle Selldorf pointed out in an Arch Record interview that “The streetscape is already starting to get lost among glass high-rises.” Instead of designing a building which challenges the neighborhood’s character, the architect developed a style which enhances the surrounding architectural style with an update.

The architects wanted to create a new kind of living experience by allowing residents in the high-rise to park outside their front doors on their floor. Residents access the car elevator through a driveway at the base of the building. Each car has an electronic pass that opens the elevator and automatically directs the elevator to the appropriate floor. Residents then proceed to their floor and park in their private garage.

The 19-floor residential tower at 200 Eleventh Avenue

Ribbon-like quality of the stainless steel forms at 200 Eleventh Avenue.

Detail of the 200 Eleventh Ave stainless steel facade.

Creating Integrated Architecture with Design Assist

The details of these stainless steel forms were roughly defined during the planning process, so that the finer details could be solidified with Zahner’s Design Assist team. This meant that the design would be fully defined for fabrication in the Zahner plant, and that the details would integrate tightly into the Selldorf design plan.

This kind of collaborative building process is key to the development of smart connections and high-end metalwork. Zahner worked closely with the architects at Selldorf to match their intent while operating within the constraints of the project’s stainless steel construction.

The mockup for the stainless steel metalwork at the Zahner factory in Kansas City.

Zahner welder Kerry Butler with the 200 Eleventh mockup at the Kansas City factory.

Animation shows the design iterations of the stainless steel connection detail.

The 3-frame animation shows the design assist process for the curving form connection, from the original 3D model to the final unitized system that Zahner would produce. The mockup that was produced at the Zahner fabrication facility features this final design connection that was used on the 200 Eleventh Residences. This highly crafted connection is finished with the Angel Hair texture on stainless steel.

Silver Towers

August 15, 2016/in Exterior Architecture, Landscape Architecture Highrise, Residential New York City James Carpenter Design Associates Silver L /by cmorris

Silver Towers Courtyard Trellis in New York

Silver Towers is a development in New York City which features Zahner manufactured perforated metal and glass systems. The courtyard, plinth and rooftop terrace design by James Carpenter Design Associates, brings an artistic approach to both the facade as well as the landscape for the residential project.

Between the two high-rise towers is a six floor plinth, the interior courtyard of which features a 75 foot light wall. Various metal and glass light fixtures which feature the artist’s pattern.

Zahner was hired by the architect to design, engineer, and fabricate these metal and glass systems. Each of the fixtures features a perforated metal floral pattern designed by the architect, contained within a glass and stainless steel lightbox.

Also known as River Place II, the project features two 57 floor twin towers and is located in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan Island. The project was developed by Larry Silverstein and completed in 2009.

Perforated panels on Hope Tower at UNMC at dusk.

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Hope Tower at UNMC

The tower serves provides a beacon for students, serving as both a navigational tool and an artistic centerpiece. Zahner provided the ti-coated stainless steel panels, perforated and prepped for installation onto the architect's engineered frame. These panels were engineered and produced at Zahner at the Kansas City plant.

Silver Towers light fixtures and metalwork.

Silver Towers Mockup at the Zahner shop.

Silver Towers Mockup with lighting system

Above is a photograph of the towers during the day. Zahner produced some metalwork at the building’s top, similar in pattern and effect to those in the building’s courtyard. This rooftop courtyard has not yet been photographed.

Silver Towers is the first project that Zahner has provided metalwork for James Carpenter Design Associates. Recently, Zahner also completed a spiraling 120 foot tower in Nebraska for the architectural firm.

September 11 Museum

August 15, 2016/in Exterior Architecture Memorial, Museum New York City Handel Architects, Snøhetta Silver L 2014 /by cmorris

National September 11 Memorial Museum Pavilion

The National September 11 Memorial Museum resides in the space between where the Twin Towers once stood in New York City. Designed by Snøhetta with Handel, Zahner manufactured the custom facade skin for the building. The architects worked with Zahner engineers and designers in the Design Assist team to develop the facade system. Zahner unitized the metal systems in Kansas City and then shipped everything to the job site for installation.

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911 Museum with waterfall at the WTC Memorial.

Striating stainless steel panel system used on the 911 Museum facade.

South facade for the National September 11th Museum.

Developing the 911 Museum Metal Facade

The panels were tested for wind loads and water permeability at a special facility. The panelization method used for the project required welding studs to the reverse of each panel. Zahner-trained fabricators welded the hardware at ideal penetration so that the stud-welds wouldn’t show on the face of the metal panels.

The surface of the metal shell alternates between GB-60 polish and a No. 4 polish on stainless steel. The No. 4 polish has greater reflectivity along a linear grain, while the GB-60 surface scatters light for a more diffused look. This alternation repeats itself as a motif in not only the stainless steel facade, but also across the fenestration surface.

Detail of the 911 Museum facade in New York City.

Zahner's NS11 mockups were tested for high moisture and winds.

Zahner fabricator installs studs on the backs of NS11 Panels.

National September 11 Museum during construction

Detail of the National September 11 Museum stainless steel surface

Oakley Fifth Avenue

August 15, 2016/in Exterior Architecture Flagship, Public Art, Storefront New York City Oakley Colin Baden Black, Blue-grey M 2015 /by cmorris

Oakley Fifth Avenue, New York City

Zahner worked with Oakley’s architectural team to create the new Oakley flagship store on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, New York. The project’s scope included the development of a geometric facade with no visible fasteners, which could be installed on a 100-year-old building across one of the busiest streets in New York.

This wasn’t Zahner’s first collaboration with Oakley. In the late 1990’s Zahner’s engineered metal-fabricated systems were used the facade and interiors of the Oakley Headquarters in Foothill Ranch, California.

For the Oakley Flagship at Fifth Avenue, the company’s unique ”Mad Science“ aesthetic shows through as a massive black geometric facade and canopy system for their latest retail experience.

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Oakley Headquarters

Designed by Oakley director of design Colin Baden with Langdon Wilson Architecture, the headquarters and technical center was completed in multiple scopes. The project first began in 1997 and was completed in 1998. Years later the company would come back for additional scope, producing the Oakley reception desk in the same aesthetic.

Details of Oakley Fifth Avenue in New York City.

Developing the Design for the Oakley Flagship on Fifth Ave

One of the design challenges for this project, was that the client didn’t want to show or see any fasteners on the surface of the system. Zahner engineers and fabricators rose to the challenge, providing a connectionless facade.

The aluminum skin used Radius Reduction technology to create the geometric forms. These angular forms were v-notched using a custom milling system developed by Zahner for making a v-groove on unique panels. On this system, each of the holes were cut, as well as the perimeter shape for the forms. Each panel had ten to fifteen skins in 3/16″ aluminum, with 3/4″ steel structure. The finished surface was painted with acrylic polyurethane coating system, spray-applied with Matthews System paint. The design has 8″ between the panels.

Architect's renderings of the Oakley Facade for Fifth Avenue Flagship.

The existing building is more than 100 years old, which created unique hurdles for attaching a heavy load. Zahner project team coordinated steel, and coordinated the site, for three months while developing the model. During this process, the design team discovered code changes providing additional challenges. The offset couldn’t go more than 18 inches off of the building. Some of the pieces were canopies, so there were limitations on how far off the building it could go.

As part of the project’s Design Assist phase I, a mockup was made of the design. This mockup was displayed in Kansas City for the clients, which provided valuable feedback for the fabrication of the final product.

Mockup at Zahner in Kansas City for the Oakley Fifth Avenue in New York City.

Aluminum profiles with notches cut for clips.

Making the most efficient installation possible.

The large elements were to be hoisted on one of the busiest avenues in Manhattan. So providing The design was essentially three sections: the steel structure, the aluminum clip, and then the aluminum skin. The clip had all the intelligence. As such it is a very smart object. The connection between steel and aluminum facade, is a clip connection.

There is no mechanical connection operation required in the field. The skin drove the geometry, and the structure followed the skin, and then clip was the intermediate. Zahner made notches in the steel, and small cut-outs in the skin for the clip system. There were 100’s of clip types, and 1000’s of clips in total. Each panel had a spreadsheet, and there were columns in the spreadsheet that had. Zahner engineers call this process powercopies. A powercopy is a reusable parametric modeled component. The end result is a face with no face fasteners. Invisible plug welds were used on the front, and rivets on the back.

Zahner strung conduit for the sign and lighting. The signs were placed on the sculptural form before being shipped out. On-site, the final wiring was simply making a connection. The project was installed on site in a matter of days.

Installers lift the Oakley panel on Fifth Avenue in New York City.

Morimoto

August 15, 2016/in Exterior Architecture Restaurant New York City Stephanie Goto, Tadao Ando Charcoal, Grey S 2006 /by cmorris

Morimoto in New York City

A red curtain displaying traditional Japanese noren hangs in the custom entrance for the Morimoto, a Japanese restaurant in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan. The facade, manufactured by Zahner in Kansas City, brings a custom touch to an otherwise standard shingle. Its blackened zinc patina on galvanized steel is both classic and modern, as is its corrugated facade.

The restaurant, named for and run by Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto, is designed by Stephanie Goto and Tadao Ando. This upscale Chelsea bar and restaurant is just a few steps from the South end of the High Line Park in lower Manhattan.

Zahner produced the exterior, a blackened galvanized steel corrugating wall with a wide opening for its entrance. The facade’s matte appearance is a feature of its natural patina. The system that Zahner designed with the architecture team uses a face-fastener which add an industrial aesthetic.

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Oscura™ Blackened Steel – Archive

Oscura is a Zahner blackened patina on steel that has been developed for interior use. Activated steel surfaces create a mottled and artistic ambiance that varies from sheet to sheet. The primary surface is sealed with a clear coat to mitigate rusting due to the effects of the ambient interior environment.

Juilliard Stairs

August 15, 2016/in Interior Architecture Education New York City Diller Scofidio + Renfro, FXFOWLE Architects Grey, Red M 2009 /by cmorris

Slow Stairs at The Juilliard School in New York City

Zahner worked with the architects at Diller Scofidio + Renfro to develop a gliding red stairway for the recent renovations at The Juilliard School in New York City. Zahner was responsible to Turner Construction in New York City for producing the design engineered metal-work. The two staircases are located one after the other, on the eastern-most side of the school from the third to fifth floors. There the students can collect their thoughts around the adjacent study areas.

The stairway was designed to appear as though it were made from a single sheet of metal. In actuality, the stair is made possible by several plates of 3/4″ low-carbon steel, seamlessly welded and painstakingly ground to achieve the look of a unified single piece of metal. Each step is a separate plate, bent at a 90 degree angle on either side, and then welded to either side of the staircase. The stairs are placed at a non-standard height and depth, so that the effect is a “slow staircase” where each step is only slightly elevated from the last.

Juilliard Staircase designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro.

One of the issues with welding metal is its tendency to warp itself towards the weld. When it came time to weld the long pipe which serves as the hand rail, Zahner identified this as a potential problem. If this wasn’t done correctly, the entire staircase would bow to the left or right as one looked up at it. After debating different ways to prevent warpage, the solution Zahner employed was an old ship building technique — we welded the handrail from both sides at the same time. The result is a highly accurate straight piece of steel with only three connections to the building.

Custom staircase loaded on a truck to be shipped to Juilliard School in New York City.

Detail of the staircase design's joints, ground to a seamless finish.

Issey Miyake

August 15, 2016/in Interior Architecture Flagship, Retail & Commerce New York City Frank Gehry Partners, G TECTS Silver S 2001 /by cmorris

Issey Miyake Tribeca, in Titanium

Issey Miyake Tribeca is a retail store for the Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake designed by Gordon Kipping (G TECTS) with Frank Gehry in a historic cast-iron warehouse building. Located in in the Tribeca neighborhood of lower Manhattan, the store integrates a sculptural titanium ceiling and wall system designed by Frank Gehry Partners as a center piece, extending from a shaft emerging from the cellar floor into a turbulent swirl engulfing the ceiling of the ground floor retail space.
Zahner worked for Kipping and Gehry to produce undulating forms and structural support system for this high fashion store in New York City. Hand-formed and machine-formed Titanium panels were attached to the support system, a complex curving tubed branching form which runs throughout the store and can be seen in several detail shots below.

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Issey Miyake

Titanium is a notoriously difficult surface to work with. The material has incredible memory, which is why it’s been re-branded as a smart metal for high-end eye-glasses. In construction, the difficulty with it’s memory is that it wants to revert to a flat form. It also has a much harder huge tensile capacity, which enables it to take greater loads, but also makes it difficult to form.

For the Miyake project, Zahner engineered a flexible system which allowed the Architects to join the installers in New York. Custom-engineered machined stainless steel rotation points gave the metal sheet forms a large degree of leniency. Together the architects and installers manipulated the metal into their desired forms, referencing the fashion displayed on the store’s ground floor and lower level.

Interior surfaces of the Issey Miyake Store in Tribeca, New York City.

Curving titanium drop ceiling at Issey Miyake Tribeca.

Detail of the downstairs basement floor of Issey Miyake Tribeca.

Interior titanium surfaces at the Issey Miyake Tribeca.

Installation process at Issey Miyake Tribeca.

CAD layout for the steel pipe armatures which support the cascading titanium.

The above images show the Miyake Project during construction and the CAD rendering of the structural tubing which the entire sculpture is hooked into. The tubed system as well as the metal surface were developed collaboratively between the architects and the Design Assist Team at Zahner.

The images below are from Gordon Kipping, showing the architect with the artists and fashion designers involved in the project. Also shown are the initional sketches as well as the photographed result of Frank Gehry’s Tornado installation in the Issey Miyake Tribeca.

Video art capture of the designer, the architect, and the artist of the Issey Miyake Tribeca.

Frank Gehry Sketch of the Tornado design for the Issey Miyake Tribeca.

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.

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Hotel guests enter the south entrance of the Dream Hotel in NYC.

North facade of the Dream Downtown / Staircase inside the Dream Hotel.

South facade of the Dream Downtown in New York City.

Metal fabricators at Zahner's shop manufacture the window systems for the New York City facade..

Detail of the metal panel system of the south side of Dream Downtown.

Cooper Union

August 15, 2016/in Exterior Architecture Education, LEED New York City Gruzen Samton, Morphosis Grey, Silver L 2011 /by cmorris

Cooper Union Academic Building at 41 Cooper Square

Cooper Union New Academic Building at 41 Cooper Square is a Morphosis designed educational facility which includes a custom-curving and perforated stainless steel facade, made by Zahner.

The University’s new building covers a full city block on Third Avenue from East 6th to East 7th in downtown Manhattan, bordering the East Village. The Morphosis design provides Cooper Union with a futuristic facade, strikingly different from its surrounding buildings.

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Working with Zahner's Design Assist team of engineers, designers and fabricators, this generative design was developed for manufacturing. A team of Zahner installers completed the project in Los Angeles, providing the campus with a visually compelling, efficiently envisioned, and rapidly completed building envelope system.

Cooper Union New Academic Building in Manhattan.

From afar, small windows appear to be scattered across the building’s surface. Drawing nearer, it becomes clear that these windows are actually sheets of stainless steel. Perforated sheets, surfaced in a mechanically-applied Angel Hair finish, encompass the entire facade and offer a sustainable, energy saving solution. By controlling sunlight penetration during warm weather and acting as an insulating barrier in cold weather, the skin system promises a 50% reduction in heat load.

Timelapse of 41 Cooper Square in New York.

Fabricators at Zahner assemble the Cooper Union facade in Kansas City.

Design Assist for 41 Cooper Square

Morphosis Architects invited Zahner to join the project team early on in a Design Assist process. Zahner collaborated with the team to provide engineering-design and manufacturing for the building facade.

Many Zahner-manufactured projects begin in the Design Assist (DA) phase. During DA, Architects provide a general model or conceptual drawings, collaborating with Zahner engineers to define details. The goal of the process is to achieve efficient manufacturing, within a budget, while remaining true to the original vision. As the project moved into the production phase, parts were engineered, drafted, and fabricated as pre-assembled metal panels for quick installation. The completed panel assemblies were shipped to New York City where local installers completed construction.