S | Zahner

SFMTA Ticket Kiosks

San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency Ticket Kiosks

The SFMTA Ticket Kiosks are a series of ticketing booths in San Francisco for accessing the cable car envisioned by Lundberg Design. Zahner manufactured the custom perforated metal components for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. The designers wanted to wrap the top of the booth with imagery of the historic cable cars.

This effect was elegantly achieved by perforating the surface of stainless steel to create the light and dark tonal values of the original photographs. To achieve the mosaic-perforated imagery, ZIRA patented technology was used (designers can now create similar designs using ImageWall to generate custom perf).

Related System

SFMTA Ticket Kiosks

This technology enabled a smooth translation of the designer’s imagery to metal while also also ensuring panel-to-panel relational accuracy. This is crucial on a project such as this: The imagery is divided into a series of panels and wrapped around the sides of the small structure, so it was important that the perforations on each panel lined up with the next panel.

The photos above are from the Cable Car line are located where Powell meets Market in San Francisco. The second kiosk is located at Presidio Avenue and Geary Blvd, pictured below. Above is an image of the completed panels in the Zahner shop prior to shipping to San Francisco. Blue protective film protects the stainless surface from finger prints and dirt prior to installation.

Video and stills courtesy Ryan Hughes of Lundberg Design. Hughes managed the project from the early design phases to the project’s completion, working closely with Zahner engineers and fabricators throughout the process.

San Diego Central Library

August 15, 2016/in Art & Sculpture, Exterior Architecture Library San Diego--California Luce et Studio Silver S 2014 /by cmorris

San Diego Central Library Donor Features

Signage, artworks, and architectural features designed by Luce et Studio are featured throughout the new nine-story San Diego Central Library in downtown San Diego. The features include an illuminated mast which spans four floors on the building’s North exterior, a massive-scale replica of an orchestral bow on the exterior of the ninth floor, and custom signage to celebrate the donor spaces throughout the library.

Donor Recognition

Throughout the building’s nine stories and exterior spaces are various signifiers, art elements, and architectural features which created to recognize the generous donations made by the philanthropic community in San Diego. The Central Library’s funding is unusual for a civic building, because forty percent of the costs were covered through private fund raising, including the operational costs of running the library. The private support means that the library was built with no new taxes, bonds, or moneys from the city’s general fund.

Related System

Signage

Signage and wayfinding design has transformed over the years from a purely utilitarian and informational, into art and design. Finding ways to make signage both useful and aesthetic has been a goal of the design-engineering and fabrication at Zahner for many years.

The San Diego Central Public Library at night.

Detail of the Mast at San Diego Central Public Library.

The Mast arrives in prefabricated sections at the site for the San Diego Central Library.

The Mast at San Diego Central Library

Luce et Studio’s design for The Mast for San Diego’s downtown Public Library was designed as a 70′ tall aluminum column, whose diameter ranges from 8′ at its top and bottom, and 12′ at its median.

The Mast is constructed in aluminum with varying perforations which run up around its length. Inside of the mast is an interior LED lighting system, which provides a beacon of star-studded lights which illuminates the facade throughout the evening hours. The mast was manufactured by Zahner in Kansas City, and installed by a local team in San Diego.

The Violin Bow at San Diego Central Library

One of the donors recognized by the Museum is the late Helen Price whose continued philanthropic giving to the museum was recognized by a 30‘ scale orchestral bow to celebrate the San Diego figure’s love for the symphony.

The bow is made using stainless steel and structural cable. Both the bow and the mast were manufactured by Zahner with design support from Wallace Engineering.

Fabricators at Zahner manufacture the signage and donor recognition for the SDCL Violin Bow.

Local installers place the violin bow and donor recognition for the Helen Price Reading Room at SDCL.

The Helen Price Reading Room violin bow artwork, by Luce et Studio at SDCL.

Detail of the head plate for the finished violin bow artwork at San Diego Central Library.

Detail of the Helen Price Reading Room violin bow artwork, by Luce et Studio at SDCL.

Joan & Irwin Jacobs Common

At the building’s South entrance are multiple signage elements for the San Diego Library Joan & Irwin Jacobs Common, recognizing the philanthropist team who donated $20 million towards the library’s operational costs.

The technique used to create the building’s southern pedestrian level signage is a signature style developed by Luce et Studio on an unrealized project for Hotel James (pictured below). The signage concept was developed by Jennifer Luce to create a third dimension for the cut-out letter shapes. Zahner manufactures a groove in each of the letters, which allows the letter to then be folded out. The concept was first created years prior, and is featured prominently as a notable signage display for the San Diego Central Library.

Custom signage concept designed by Luce et Studio for an unrealized Hotel James. The letters, laser cut from stainless steel, become three dimensional louvers, connected by a small tab.

San Diego Central Library signage with custom ornamental detailing.

Joan ? Irwin Jacobs Common donor plaque and signage for San Diego Central Library.

Joan and Irwin Jacobs Common donor plaque and signage for San Diego Central Library.

Library Bar Code Signage

One of the themes that moves throughout the entirety of the library is a bar code motif, extruding from the letter forms of various donor plaques and signage elements on both the interior and exterior surfaces of the library. The extruded letter forms also break planes and wrap around columns, walls, and concrete boundaries.

The thick metals used in the custom signage include stainless steel and bronze, and included areas that are painted, as well as areas that let the metal surface shine through, much of which uses Zahner’s Angel Hair mechanical non-directional surface treatment.

Donald C. & Elizabeth M Dickinson Popular Library ornamental donor signage for SDPL Central Library.

Exploration Floor signage recognizing the donation of Joy & Ed Frieman .

Custom donor signage for the San Diego Central Library.

Custom donor signage for the Pauline Foster Family Teen Center at San Diego Central Library.

Custom signage for the San Diego Central Library.

Joan ? Irwin Jacobs Common signage donor recognition for the San Diego Central Library .

Shiley Special Events Suite

One of the final donors donors for the new library, Darlene Shiley placed $1.2 million towards the library’s operational fund, and her donation is honored with a rooftop events suite. The entrance to the space is clad in interference stainless steel, perforated using a custom pattern. The Zahner system used to lay out the decorative metal screen panels is based on the ImageWall/ZIRA system, which also provides for a muted seam where the perforations continue across the joint’s reveal.

One Sun / 34 Moons

August 15, 2016/in Art & Sculpture Museum, Public Art, Sculpture Kansas City Steven Holl Architects Walter de Maria Gold M, S 2002 /by cmorris

Walter de Maria’s One Sun, 34 Moons Sculpture

In 2001, Zahner was enlisted to work on the master plan for the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. The building, designed by Steven Holl Architects, is a massive expansion, and Zahner provided various metalwork throughout the new construction and played a role in the renovations to its existing historic building.

In addition to the architectural features, a large scale site-specific artwork by Walter de Maria was commissioned by the Museum. Zahner was brought on as fabricator for the installation by the famed land artist. The work, entitled One Sun / 34 Moons, is made up of thirty-four ‘Moons’ which are realized as illuminated glass fixtures scattered throughout the installation.

These ‘Moons’ are installed at the bottom of a large reflecting pool in front of the museum’s northern staircase. At the artwork’s center is a golden ‘Sun’ fabricated by Zahner in stainless steel, surfaced with gilded bronze.

One Sun / 34 Moons, by Walter de Maria, 2002.

The artwork is a collaboration in several ways. The artwork features a gilded bronze leaf application developed by Walter de Maria partners American Burnish in New York. The vision of Steven Holl can be seen in how the ‘Moons’ provide natural lighting for the parking garage underneath. Zahner’s expertise can be seen as both the massive engineered form as well as the long-term performance of the architectural metal as art.

For the artwork, Walter de Maria wanted a golden color that would appear bright in almost any light, direction, or shadow. Zahner’s team worked with the artist on various color options, and the textured gilded bronze surface was selected as the best option to meet these constraints.

In creating the form of the ‘Sun’, Zahner was able to apply engineering and fabrication expertise as well as an unparalleled understanding of metallurgy.

Selecting and specifying the construction materials for performance and durability required careful consideration of the engineered details, galvanic corrosion, and pH levels for the reflecting pool and water feature design to prevent moisture from deteriorating the surface.

Steven Holl & the Use of Light: 34 Moons

Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of Walter de Maria’s sculpture is the way that it integrates into the greater architectural vision of Steven Holl & Chris McVoy. Each of the ’34 Moons’ are actually part of a skylight design used to provide natural light to the parking structure below the surface of the park.

The light temperature of the neon illumination matches that of the moon; the architects’ use of both natural and electric light innovates and plays perfectly into Walter de Maria’s vision of the moon in an almost literal sense.

Photograph of the Walter de Maria artwork at dusk.

Detail of the gilded leaf, Nelson-Atkins, Kansas City.

Oculus

August 15, 2016/in Art & Sculpture Sculpture Kansas City Reilly Hoffman Charcoal, Gold, Green S 2008 /by cmorris

Oculus Sculpture, KCAI Competition

Every other year, Zahner produces one or more artworks in conjunction with the Kansas City Art Institute’s Biennial Auction for Student Scholarships. In the 2007 year, artist Reilly Hoffman won the competition with a sculpture entitled, ‘Oculus’. Zahner manufactured the base form in aluminum, and water jet cut the parts for the sculpture. Hoffman then crafted copper and steel with his signature torch-carving techniques.

The design of the artwork is based on a smaller version of the artwork. The artwork’s concept is a sphere which has been cut into slices. Two of the slices are intertwined in a kiss. The sculpture’s exterior appearance is a rough steel, while its inner areas are clad in copper.

Although diminutive when compared to buildings, the sculpture is still quite large compared to the human scale. The large size required the use of a substructure to apply the metal surface.

To create the sculpture in its large form required making changes to the how the artwork is manufactured. Zahner engineers in the Design Assist team proposed using ZEPPS, the Zahner system developed for building curves. Using the this system enabled the team to make a light aluminum understructure to which the metal surface was attached.

This use of ZEPPS for manufacturing objects such as this one is somewhat atypical. The system is more commonly used to produce the large curved walls for uniquely shaped buildings. In situations where a rapid-installation process is required, or for installations at higher elevations, ZEPPS provides an efficient way to design, engineer, and install such unique forms.

The cad rendering above shows the effect of copper hammered through the mild steel plate. The mild steel has perforations in the side which allow for sections of the copper to show through, see below.

The project used three metals: a aluminum for its structure, copper for its core, and carbon-steel. The back and the inner sections of the sculpture are finished with the Star Blue patina on hammered copper. The sides of the sculpture are finished with water jet cut mild steel, backed by a sheet of sealed red copper, also hammered. The effect is a highly detailed and sculptural piece, which is now in a private collection.

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.

Related Surface

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.

Michigan Avenue Plaza

August 15, 2016/in Exterior Architecture Renovation Chicago--Illinois FGM Architects Red S 2008 /by cmorris

Michigan Avenue Plaza in Chicago, Illinois

The addition of a bold red canopy to the decades-old Boulevard Towers at 225 Michigan Avenue has provided the buildings with a new distinctive basing in the Chicago architectural landscape.

While the buildings’ original design was completed in the early 1980’s by Fujikawa Johnson Associates (FJA Architects), this project was conceived as a renovation in the early 2000’s designed by FGM Architects.

Zahner was brought on to design and engineer the system, as well as providing the manufacture and installation of the prefabricated components of the distinctive red awning. Fabricated in aluminum panels with a red protective enamel coating, the understructure is made possible by a lightweight ZEPPS framework of preassembled panels.

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.

The red aluminum canopy for Michigan Avenue Plaza in Chicago.

The new addition of new crimson canopy was imagined by FGM Architects and made possible by a design team including A. Zahner Company, H+P Engineering, and Reed Construction for the client MB Real Estate in Chicago.

Related System

Canopy

Custom canopies fabricated with Zahner engineering benefit from high-quality craft and attention to detail. Zahner engineers work with designers and contractors to develop integrated systems which meet a range of desired aesthetics, from historic restorations and filigree to contemporary geometric forms.

Construction photo of the Michigan Avenue Plaza awning in Chicago.

Construction photo shows a man standing on the top of the Michigan Avenue Plaza awning in Chicago.

View of the red painted aluminum canopy from Michigan Avenue in Chicago.

Detail of the Michigan Avenue Plaza canpopy ceiling panels.

The canopy continues into the building's interior lobby, where an interior lighting system was integrated.

Detail of the recessed lighting system detailed in the aluminum canopy's interior ceiling panels.

Lumenhaus

August 15, 2016/in Exterior Architecture Education Blacksburg--Virginia Virginia Tech Architecture Program Silver S 2011 /by cmorris

Herzog & de Meuron have developed a number of projects with Zahner including three major works. Based in Switzerland, Herzog & de Meuron is a partnership led by Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron with Senior Partners Christine Binswanger, Ascan Mergenthaler and Stefan Marbach.

Architects come to Zahner for the company’s commitment to developing the designer’s aesthetic to completion. Zahner worked with Herzog & de Meuron to develop their design into custom architectural systems, featured below.

Lumenhaus Solar Pre-fab Housing Unit from Virginia Tech

Lumenhaus is an portable housing concept designed and built at Virginia Tech School of Architecture + Design as part of its ongoing architectural research program. Inspired by the Farnsworth House by Mies Van Der Rohe, the north and south walls are all glass, maximizing the owner’s exposure to bright, natural daylight. The fully automated Eclipsis System, comprising independent sliding layers, permits a revolutionary design in a solar-powered house, while filtering light in beautiful, flowing patterns throughout the day.

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.

Dusk photograph of Lumenhaus, Virginia Tech.

Exterior detail of the Lumenhaus facade.

Creating the Lumenhaus Facade

Zahner worked with Virignia Tech to develop the facade system, providing the engineering and fabrication for the project as part of the patented ZIRA™ System for perforating facades with custom patterns and imagery. Instead of adjusting the size of the perforation to create the metal image pattern, Lumenhaus was designed to create unique imagery through changing the angle of the protruding tab. By louvering the perforation, the visual contrast is increased between the negative dark areas and the light-capturing tabbed areas.

This is the third solar house designed and built at Virginia Tech, but it is the first to win international recognition and press. In 2010, the project won the International Solar Decathlon Competition in Madrid, Spain. In January, 2012, it was announced that the Lumenhaus has won a 2012 AIA Honor Award for Architecture. This is the first time this award has been given to a university team.

Photograph of the Lumenhaus facade for Virginia Tech.

Photograph of the Lumenhaus facade at Dusk.

Interior photograph of the Lumenhaus showing the facade and eclipsis system video.

Rooted in the design principles of the Bauhaus, the project imbues 21st century technologies to create a dynamic living situation. The entire mechanics of the house are controllable via mobile phone, so the hand-held phone becomes a remote control for the many features of the house. This Eclipsis System includes a automatic sliding screen-wall engineered and manufactured by Zahner.

Where most energy-conscious houses are closed with strategic openings to resist heat transfer, Lumenhaus has open, flowing spaces linking occupants to each other within the house and to nature outside.

The design served as both aesthetic and function, a compelling surface that filters the harsh rays of the setting sun while letting in ambient light throughout the day.

Detail of the facade pattern for the Lumenhaus project.

Detail of the imaginative facade pattern for the Lumenhaus project.

LAPD Memorial

August 15, 2016/in Art & Sculpture Memorial Los Angeles--California Gensler Gold M, S 2009 /by cmorris

Los Angeles Police Department Memorial to Fallen Officers

The new LAPD Memorial to Fallen Officers stands as a testament to the strength and courage of the Los Angeles Police Department. The memorial is dedicated to the police officers and families who have sacrificed for the community of Los Angeles.

“

We focused on the object most sacred to the LAPD: the brass badge.

David HerjeczkiPrincipal, Gensler

The project began after David Herjeczki and Christopher Keough of Gensler won a design competition for the new memorial. Working with a multi-layered concept, they developed meaning in both its design as well as its context.

“When you approach it from a distance, it will appear as a wall, reflecting the unity of the police force,” explains David Herjeczki of Gensler. “As you get closer, you will see it is an assemblage of individual pieces, each one paying tribute to a fallen officer. When contemplating an appropriate material for the memorial, we focused on the object most sacred to the LAPD: the brass badge.”

Los Angeles Police Department Memorial at the LAPD Headquarters.

The Memorial prior to installation at the LAPD Headquarters.

The LAPD Memorial dedication in Los Angeles, California.

Designing and Fabricating the Brass Memorial

To fabricate the 32′ long by 12′- 3” tall brass memorial, Kansas City-based fabricators at Zahner were enlisted to develop the team’s concept into reality. Of the 2000 shimmering brass plaques, 201 were engraved with the name, the rank and the date that each officer gave their life for a common cause.

Each plaque is staggered and set in relief. This both draws attention to the individual whose name is inscribed while allowing light from behind to illuminate each plaque. The memorial also features an abstracted badge design in the center of the memorial. The remaining plates are left blank. These plates are removable should additional names need to listed on the memorial.

The memorial’s presence was felt throughout Kansas City. After the wall was manufactured and prepared for shipment, the Kansas City Police Department escorted the delivery truck to the city limits to begin its 1,600-mile journey to Los Angeles.

“Several of us here got choked up when we found out Kansas City Police would be escorting it to city limits,” said Linda Wagener CEO of the Los Angeles Police Foundation. “In law enforcement, we really are a brotherhood.”

KCPD Officers escort the Memorial to Kansas City limits.

Los Angeles Police Officer sees the LAPD Memorial for the first time during its arrival.

The wall is set in the public plaza which is adjacent to the new police headquarters. This space, that both the police and community share, was formally dedicated on October 14, 2009. Open 24 hours a day, the memorial allows visitors to show their respect and remember the officers who have given the ultimate sacrifice.

Brass plates adorned during the dedication in Los Angeles.

Design Engineering the Los Angeles Memorial

To intelligently build the project with the small available budget required some efficient choices in the design process. Zahner began working with Gensler early on to come up with a series of solutions that did not compromise the integrity of the design or the quality of construction. The solution for this is Design Assist, a service which provides custom design solutions.

Design Assist is the process of translating the architects model to a production-ready scheme. The Design Assist process is often a collaborative re-design of the project, an essential process to ensure the constructibility of the project later down the line.

In the case of the LAPD Memorial, the architects had several web meetings with Zahner, where they were able to digitally rotate and discuss the model, tearing parts away, and streamlining the design to its core structure. The resulting design is a sustainable and flexible memorial that will stand the test of time.

Location of the memorial adjacent to the Los Angeles Police building, marked in red.

Architect's diagram of the monument design.

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.

Related Surface

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.

Highland Park Center

August 15, 2016/in Exterior Architecture Civic Minneapolis--Minnesota LSE Architects S 2015 /by cmorris

Highland Park Community Center Signage

Highland Park Community Center of Minneapolis hired LSE Architects to create a design for its new addition. Zahner was brought into the project to provide the building’s artistic signage system. The goal of the project was to create a signage system which both state the title of the community center, and also relates to the surrounding community and region.

To meet this challenge, LSE Architects provided imagery of the meandering Mississippi River from a birds-eye view where it crosses the city. This landmark was overlapped with several sections of street layout for the city itself.

The custom image perf was made using ImageWall by Zahner, whose team worked with the designers to create its unique signage. The project used minimal fabrication with no brakes or further fabrication, each the perforated panels were face-fastened onto a steel subframe.

Detail of the perforated metal signage for Highland Park Community Center.

The design was made using 1/8” aluminum with an Angel Hair finish. The artwork spans approximately 12’ x 24’ and consists of twenty seamless panels. Zahner’s Angel Hair surface was developed to soften the high reflectivity of standard finishes of stainless steel making it a perfect choice for signage.

How to Create Image-based Perforation on Metal

The designers used an image graphic created using photo-editing tools to create their design. This was uploaded into the ImageWall software, which gave the designers control over the look and feel of the final product before setting up a purchase order.

ImageWall is based on the ZIRA patented technology (Zahner Interpretive Relational Algorithm). Working with the ImageWall team, designers can create translate their imagery into perforations, bumps, and unique cutouts that can then be embossed and perforated into a selected metal. The image is not restricted to text or shapes but can be photographs as well. ImageWall allows the customer to design and experiment with specifications while being given a real time estimate.