Zahner

For over 115 years Zahner has pioneered the architectural metal industry by applying aerospace engineering to the fabrication of art and architecture. Zahner is internationally renowned for intelligent engineering and precision craftsmanship on buildings throughout the world. The museum-level craft and engineering that Zahner consistently provides can be found in the Americas, Europe, Asia & the Middle East. (source:www.azahner.com)

This past week our Materials class had the privilege of experiencing Zahner's shop settings. Zahner usually has clients that are architects that want to have free-form/flowing buildings that require extreme engineering efforts. The client that I am most impressed by is Frank Gehry, whom Zahner helped produce his pavilion in Millenium Park, in Chicago. Seeing this sculpted pavilion every day produced endless questions for me to ponder, now I know some of the answers.

Zahners' primary materiall choices consist of copper, steel, aluminum, stainless, titanium, and certain types of infused steels.  More recently, Zahner has been experimenting with newer materials like copper infused glass, and other glass materials.  

With the current age of technology, most of Zahner's processes require CAD modeling, and CAM to produce a lot of the pieces that we see in the world today.  Most of Zahner's tooling is multi-functional, which allows Zahner to produce product more cost effective and efficiently. Although a considerable amount of processes are accomplished with the use of multi-functional robotic technology, some techniques are too intricate for them, requiring humans to step in and complete the job.