The WOW factor is alive and well at the ZAHNER headquarters and plant in Kansas City, Mo. Early in 2010, ZAHNER commissioned Kansas City-based Crawford Architects to design an addition
for its 30-year-old factory. The plan added 6,200 square feet to the existing 47,000-squarefoot
factory and its purpose was to provide an open-space assembly area for the ever more complex shapes designed by architects and engineers. “We needed a larger, more open assembly and production area to realize these innovations,” says Gary Davis, AIA, director of marketing at ZAHNER.
While the addition is highly functional and befitting a factory environment, it is the exterior Cloud Wall that provides the WOW. The challenge for the exterior facade of the building was to create a uniquely distinctive appearance that directly reflects ZAHNER’s strategy and vision in the global marketplace. Crawford Architects employed custom curvilinear fins that use ZAHNER’s Engineered Profile Panel System (ZEPPS). These fins typically are used as the structural backup system to which a metal skin is applied. The company wanted to showcase the technology behind their dynamic work.
The fins were placed at 24 inches on center with a panelized Inverted Seam dry-set insulated glass system placed between. “The wall surface was designed as a research and development project for an innovative rainscreen drop and lock system for glazing units,” says Davis. “The result creates a much more open feeling in the assembly area and provides abundant natural lighting and, hence, a positive work environment.” The glass wall uses 5,400 square feet of insulated glass.
The fins have a differing profile aesthetic on the interior of the building than on the exterior. While not as exaggerated, the interior reflects the same rippling sand effect that the exterior does. That provides more definition to the space, which features 20-foot ceilings and 45 feet between columns. The steel was fabricated by Shuff Steel- Midwest in Overland Park, Kan. The open expanse provides room for two cranes to move material efficiently, even rolling directly from the assembly space through the 40-foot-wide rolling doors to the loading bays. The doors were designed and manufactured by ZAHNER.
The 8,500 square-foot Galvalume roof surface was designed using ZAHNER’s patented Inverted Seam System to maintain the strict planar aspect of the design in contrast to the adjacent robust walls.
Vital Stats
A 6,200-square-foot addition to a 30-year-ol dmanufacturing facility brings a dynamic and artistic presence to an urban neighborhood
Project Location: Kansas City, Mo.
Completed: 2011
Architects: Crawford Architects, Kansas City
Structural engineer: Wallace Engineering, Tulsa, Okla.
Steel fabricator: Shuff Steel, Midwest Division,
Overland Park, Kan.
Mechanical and electrical engineer: M.E. Group Inc.,
Lincoln, Neb.
Project Area: 6,200 square feet