“When you start any design, you have to think about how the building is going to be experienced,” says Jennifer Szczesniak, RA, NCARB, LEED AP BD+C, WELL AP. “Typically, as an architect, I get to design things people interact with, buildings people get to walk into. But this was very different. It was something people were going to experience as they moved past.”
Aluminum fins on an electrical substation create a sense of movement
Szczesniak is a senior associate at Perfido, Wiskopf, Wagstaff + Goettel (PWWG), Pittsburgh, and the building is an electrical substation that sits at the bottom of a tight valley in the vibrant Oakland neighborhood. A small lane and an urban trail popular with bicyclists and a few pedestrians run by the station, so almost everyone who sees it is in motion.
One of the things that was really critical was it could very easily look zig-zaggy where these things are twisted. And they’re not. We worked really hard to make it feel more fluid.
The solution was to create a series of twisted fins. “The idea of twisted fins came out of discussion to create movement in façade, while it is in fact static,” says Szczesniak. “The motion happens while you drive past or ride past. It’s a really conceptual idea that the public responded well to.”
Then PWWG had to make the idea reality. Originally, the fins were meant to be moving, but that was unfeasible due to cost and maintenance considerations. The next hurdle was to find a product that would allow them to twist the fins, which was a sunshade louver. Working with Construction Specialties, Lebanon, N.J., the design team determined that the maximum twist for a louver was about 30 degrees. Each vertical fin comprises five louvers that allowed them to twist across the full length of the fin up to 90 degrees.
The initial inspiration for the modeling was a map of Pittsburgh with the three rivers underlaying it. As they modeled the design, that evolved into a more esoteric vision. The map “is not distinguishable on the façade whatsoever,” says Szczesniak. “But it gave us a system in which to begin to work with. One of the things that was really critical was it could very easily look zig-zaggy where these things are twisted. And they’re not. We worked really hard to make it feel more fluid.”
The muted green color blends well with both the hillside vegetation behind the substation and the precast concrete walls the fins are attached to. As the fins twist, the light reflects differently giving the array a sense of shadow and depth. “It works as well on bright sunny days as it does on 60% cloudy days,” says Szczesniak.
The final hurdle was the installation of the fins. The tight building site meant that material couldn’t be staged on-site, so rather than install each fin individually, the crews put them in panels which are attached to plates embedded in the concrete walls. A panel could be delivered to the site, installed and then the next panel delivered. The installation took about two weeks.
