M | Zahner

Okie Blanchard

December 9, 2016/in Exterior Architecture Arena & Stadium, Passive Security Cheyenne--Wyoming Davis Partnership Architects Silver M 2015 /by cmorris

Okie Blanchard Sports Complex

Designed by Davis Partnership Architects, the new stadium at Okie Blanchard Sports Complex features a unique metal panel system made by Zahner. The architects used the Zahner-patented ImageWall to generate and detail custom image-perf which form custom imagery of football motifs.

The custom system required a number of changes to the base ImageWall system, so the designers worked with ImageWall design team to develop their project. Using the ImageWall System, the architects were able to quickly iterate through a number of unique panel designs for the stadium.

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Okie Blanchard

Additional Features of the Okie Blanchard System

One of the features of ImageWall which greatly increased the image quality across panels is the project’s use of Cross-Seam Perf. This is an innovation Zahner developed through the use of parametric design. Cross-Seam Perf comes standard with most ImageWall applications.

Most manufacturers of perforated metal don’t have a system capable of perforating across the seams, which means that each panel will have a picture-frame around the image. Punching the metal surface on both sides of the panels reveal gives the illusion of a continuous perforation across the metal surface without breaking each panel into picture frames.

The custom screen walls function as both passive security measures serving to prevent access under the bleachers while also providing a sports theme for stadium visitors.

Detail of the Okie Blanchard privacy screens.

Cross-seam perforation is a standard feature of ImageWall perforated metal.

In an effort to make room for a future junior high school on the campus, the sports and athletics program at East High School required re-planning and consolidation. Per master planning recommendations the much beloved original Okie-Blanchard stadium would need to be razed and replaced with a much-needed new facility. AVI, Inc. with Davis Partnership Architects was selected for the project encompassing 26-acres due to the team’s experience in outdoor athletics facilities and skill in incorporating natural topography into its designs.

Image output for the perforated metal used by ImageWall.

Ohio Holocaust and Liberators Memorial

December 9, 2016/in Art & Sculpture Memorial, Sculpture Columbus--Ohio Studio Libeskind Brown, Red M 2014 /by cmorris

The Ohio Holocaust and Liberators Memorial

This Ohio Holocaust and Liberators is a Daniel Libeskind-designed memorial which was manufactured and built by Zahner. The memorial was conceived to serve the millions who lost their lives in the Holocaust and the American soldiers who liberated those in concentration camps. The design by Studio Daniel Libeskind provides a space of contemplation, a place where ideas and values cut across generations, ethnic identity, and creed.

Approaching from the Statehouse, the visitor walks on a limestone walkway between inclined, graduated stone walls and two stone benches towards a pair of large 18-ft-high bronze panels. Embossed with a story told by a survivor of Auschwitz, the panels are also irregularly angled at their inner edges. The planes meet in the center, the jagged edges forming a cutout in the shape of a six-pointed star.

“The bronze book achieves an incredible sense of dynamism as each surface twists and turns, leaving no two surfaces parallel… In many ways, this project comes as much from Libeskind’s heart as from his hand.” — Architect’s Newspaper

The Ohio Holocaust and Liberators Memorial is a welcome place for reflection on public ground. Upon one of its stone walls, this line honoring the camp liberators is engraved: “If you save one life, it is as if you saved the world.”

Fabricators at Zahner place panels on the Ohio Statehouse Holocaust Memorial

Detail of the mockup for the Ohio Statehouse Holocaust Memorial

Detail of the metalwork prior to patination for the Detail of the mockup for the Ohio Statehouse Holocaust Memorial

Detail of the finished Memorial at the Ohio Statehouse

The Ohio Memorial after dusk on the lawn of the Ohio Statehouse

The memorial nears completion at the Ohio Statehouse

Kieran Timberlake Office Stair

November 9, 2016/in Interior Architecture Workplace Philadelphia--Pennsylvania Kieran Timberlake Brown, Red M 2016 /by cmorris

custom floating steel stairway

Founded in 1984, KieranTimberlake brings together the talent of nearly 100 professionals of diverse backgrounds and experience in a practice that is recognized worldwide.

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.

Zahner manufactured the design using the Radius Reduction system to create a crisp, folded-edge along the center of the stairway ramp. Radius Reduction uses custom automation to produce deep grooves along the backside of metal. This precision cut allows for crisply folded edges, even in thick metal, and can be used to produce a range of geometric designs with highly accurate precision.

Related System

Radius Reduction™

Radius Reduction™ provides a distinct alternative to traditional brake-formed metal panels, resulting in a crisp, origami-like metal edge on architectural applications.

The design includes a clever handrail extension, meeting ADA requirements.

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Staircase Systems

Zahner-manufactured custom staircase systems offer architects, designers, and artists more tools to push boundaries in the built environment with unique designs and innovative forms.

Second floor offices, showing the red-painted stairwell panels manufactured by Zahner.

15 Renwick

October 11, 2016/in Exterior Architecture Residential New York City ODA-Architecture Brown, Orange, Red M 2015 /by cmorris

15 Renwick Residential Development in Manhattan

Zahner provided exterior copper panels pre-patinated with a Dirty Penny finish.

15 Renwick is a 31-unit building, designed by ODA-Architecture, featuring a unique mix of 2- and 3-bedroom residences, three townhomes with private yards and four penthouse duplexes.

65 East Goethe

August 15, 2016/in Exterior Architecture Historic, Residential Chicago--Illinois Lucien Lagrange Blue-grey, Grey M 2002 /by cmorris

65 East Goethe Street in Chicago, Illinois

65 E. Goethe Street was designed by Lucien Lagrange and features custom roof, facade, and window coverings by Zahner. Completed in 2002, the project required traditional building methods to match the architectural aesthetic.

The design reflects the architectural style of the Second French Empire, fitting for a building set in the heart of Chicago’s Gold Coast. Both roof and wall paneling systems were fabricated and installed using traditional standing seam roof practices.

The exterior cladding of the new luxury residences in Chicago by architects at Lucien Lagrange was produced by Zahner. The standing seam room wall panel design was clad with preweathered zinc, and features a wide range of historic architectural features.

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65 East Goethe

40 Bond Street

August 15, 2016/in Exterior Architecture Residential New York City Handel Architects, Herzog & de Meuron Brown, Green M 2007 /by cmorris

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.

100th Anniversary SMWIA

August 15, 2016/in Interior Architecture Exhibit, Museum Washington D.C. Frank Gehry Partners Silver, Yellow M 1988 /by cmorris

a Centennial celebration of monumental proportions

To celebrate the 1988 centennial of the Sheet Metal Workers International Association, the organization commissioned the then emerging architect, Frank Gehry, to design a temporary architectural structure to be placed inside the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C.

Engineered, fabricated, and installed through a collaborative process, the project was one of the first produced by Gehry with Zahner.

Zahner provided the four types of metal panel used to create the 65-foot-high structure: copper, polished brass, galvanized steel, and terne plate. The varying metal types and tones emphasized Gehry’s vision to represent a city in terms of ‘a collage of disparate pieces.’ Each panel, cut to various size, was placed in thoughtful juxtaposition, conveying a sense of organized chaos.

“

It’s like if you threw a bunch of objects into a can. You would still recognize them all. That’s what a city is, a collage of disparate pieces.

Frank O. Gehry

Zahner engineered, fabricated and installed of this custom sculptural form inside the National Building Museum. The installation was constructed for the Summer of 1988, afterwhich it was dismantled, repurposed and recycled.

Zahner Headquarters

August 15, 2016/in Exterior Architecture Parking Structure, Renovation Kansas City Crawford Architects L. William Zahner Silver M 2011 /by cmorris

The North Dock Expansion at the Zahner Campus

Designed by Crawford Architects, the Zahner Headquarters façade features undulating ZEPPS assemblies. ZEPPS, the Zahner process used to create custom curving surfaces, are used in projects around the world. Typically, ZEPPS assemblies consist of structural aluminum fins and ribs which are then clad in stainless steel, zinc, or any other building skin material.

The design of the Zahner Headquarters, however, was inspired from examining the ZEPPS understructure; the assemblies were intentionally left exposed, revealing the beauty of the engineering behind what is usually covered over. Zahner engineered and produced the exterior façade, naming it ‘Cloud Wall,’ and subsequently developed an app for designers to easily create similar custom façade iterations online.

The billowing curtain wall features glass inset between each fin. Part of the Inverted Seam system, Zahner developed a patented Drop & Lock method for engineering and installing panelized dry-set glass. Installation is quick and easy via male and female connections.

With a nearly 40-foot high ceiling 10,000-square feet of added space, the expansion allows Union Sheet Metal Workers to easily fabricate large-scale ZEPPS and other assemblies.

A crane is used to hoist each panel into place.

Zahner Installers install the glass panels.

Zahner Headquarters viewed from the North.

Zahner Headquarters viewed from the East.

Photograph of the Cloud Wall during construction.

Zahner employees have a safety lunch in the shop prior to the Cloudwall Installation.

Photograph of the shop interior during the production of MIC.

Learn more about the Zahner Headquarters Expansion

Green Building & Design Magazine Crawford Architects June 2012.
Architect Magazine Zahner Cloud Wall September 2011.
Archdaily Zahner Factory Expansion September 2011.
Zahner Product: GlassFin™ Curtainwall
Zahner Product: Drop & Lock™ Metal Panel Systems

Winged Refuge

August 15, 2016/in Art & Sculpture Government, Memorial, Sculpture Colorado Springs--Colorado John Lajba Silver M, S 2011 /by cmorris

Winged Refuge at the Colorado Springs Air Force Academy

Artist John Lajba came to Zahner with a machined cast-bronze model in-hand, which was used to accurately define the art fabrication of the commissioned monument to the United States Air Force.

Winged Refuge was manufactured using a semi-mirror stainless steel surface. The connection edges include both TIG-welded corners, as well as broken edges with Radius Reduction for the sharpest possible corner and edge connections. The two sculptures were fabricated in the Zahner shop, wrapped in blue-plastic netto, and shipped to the job site where each sculpture bolted into a raised stone section. The stone and concrete contractors then completed the rest of the ground surface.

Related System

Radius Reduction™

Radius Reduction™ provides a distinct alternative to traditional brake-formed metal panels, resulting in a crisp, origami-like metal edge on architectural applications.

Winged Refuge Sculpture at the Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs, by artist John Lajba.

Photograph of John Lajba with his Winged Refuge Sculpture Model.

White Chapel

August 15, 2016/in Exterior Architecture Education, Worship Center Terre Haute--Indiana VOA Associates Silver L, M 2001 /by cmorris

The John R. and Elizabeth L. White Chapel at Rose-Hulman

Designed by VOA Associates, White Chapel is a non-denominational place of prayer serving the campus community at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. The project was made possible from a generous gift from John White, a Rose-Hulman graduate and local Terre Haute businessman.

Designing the Rose-Hulman Chapel Building Envelope

Zahner was responsible to the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology for the production and installation of the total building envelope. Zahner designed, fabricated, and installed the custom tapered roof and glazing system.

The entire surface was modeled using 3D CAD Technologies to produce custom components that would fit into the building’s unique conical shape. The surface is a No. 4 Satin Finish on Stainless Steel, panelized as a custom flat seam rain screen.

Diamond-shaped stainless steel panels clad the exterior of the nave shell. The shell is split by a series of vertical ribbon windows and a continuous ridge skylight. The entire east end of the nave is glazed, allowing the campus to act as a backdrop for activities taking place within the chapel.

Interior photograph of the chapel at Rose-Hulman.

Photograph of White Chapel at dusk on the Rose-Hulman campus.

Aerial photograph of White Chapel at the Rose-Hulman Institute Campus.

Students dive in the lake in front of the chapel at Rose-Hulman.

Detail of the stainless steel panel system on the Rose-Hulman campus White Chapel.

Sunset at White Chapel at the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology

Dusk at the White Chapel at the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology

Photograph of White Chapel roof at dusk on the Rose-Hulman campus

The shape of the chapel required an engineered design innovation. VOA architect Kevin Curran chose a diamond-shaped stainless steel shingle for the building’s exterior that could hold its smooth form in heavy rain, snow or 92 degree heat. The shingle’s interlocking joints allow each to slip against one another. The skin flexes as the chapel’s surface heats up or cools down. This curtain wall material was tested extensively to ensure it would hold up to all Indiana weather conditions.

Today, the uniquely modern non-denominational chapel continues to serve Rose-Hulman students and campus organizations as a place of spiritual refuge. It has also become a destination for the larger Terre Haute community. White Chapel stands as an example of how culture, beauty and community-building are achievable through close collaboration and understanding between an architect and institution.