BMA Blog

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The house has been dried in for a while and the interior finishes are starting to show up in force. One of the topics I discussed a while back were these custom mosaic wall panels that are getting installed in key locations throughout the project. The first one I covered was going up on the roof top terrace and I talked about it here. The other two locations are the Great Room fireplace surround and the wall behind the tub in the Master Bathroom. The first one here is obviously the fireplace surround – maybe it’s not obvious that it’s a fireplace but at the very least, you know it’s not a tub.

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The fireplace we are using is a 6′ direct vent Spark modern fireplace. They are very clean and suit the style of this home very well. To help you understand the scale of the Great Room, as well as the size of this mosaic surround, I included a partial interior elevation above. That is one of my infamous scale figures to the side – he’s 6′ tall. The overall dimensions of the surround is 12′-4″ long by 5′-6″ tall. This is a dynamic piece and once all the other finishes and cabinetry come together, I think everyone will be very excited by what they see.

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The artist who created these pieces for us is Ravenna born Italian mosaic artist Anna Fietta - and if you didn’t know, Ravenna, Italy is sometimes called the ‘mosaic city’ and  is renown for the beautiful 5th and 6th century mosaics that adorn the walls of its churches and monuments. Anna had to build all these mosaics on panels and ship them over to the contractor – so in the picture above, you can see an example of where the panels come together. Eventually these panels will be mortared into place, right now they are screwed to the wall to protect them from “walking” off the job site. Early next year (in 2012) Anna will fly over with a bag of smalti glass tiles to fill in the seams between the panels. The whole piece will flow together so that you won’t see any evidence that this large scale mosaic surround was anything other than one large installation.

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Since Anna is Italian – and has okay English language skills, and I only speak English (with a little international language of love thrown in), I relied on frequent quick sketches emailed back and forth to help her understand the specific size and shape that her panels needed to be. I also took advantage of Google translate more times than I can remember. I would write what I needed to say, plug it into the translate feature in Google and violá! A workable translation into Italian.

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Moving onto the Master Bathroom, this is the feature wall that will go behind the Victoria + Albert bath tub that is specified for this location. In this location, we did have a communication breakdown and the panels ended up being about 17″ too short for the space we needed. There is a light cove at the top of this wall and my original details (which were in English) said to “extend the finish into the light cove”. As a result, we have some more work for Anna to do for us. I spoke with the contractor and we were trying to decide if it would be easier to add the missing panel to the top or the bottom of the wall – we even did a quick profile cut-out of the tub so that we could see how the pattern would work (we were afraid that the silver wave would be too hidden once the tub was installed.

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I spoke with Anna and she said that the silver wave you see here is supposed to look like it is splashing down into the tub so unlike the photos you see here, these panels will move down to the floor. I redrew my original elevation of this wall to clearly convey to Anna the size of the missing area we needed to cover. This time, I ran some of my construction notes through Google translate and added them to my drawing (seen below).

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Here is another look at where 4 separate panels are coming together. All these areas will get filled in once Anna arrives.

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A look at the different smalti pieces – the ‘wave’ element in real life is far more vibrant and awesome than these photos show. I don’t like using the flash on my camera and since this room is on the interior of the house, there isn’t a lot of natural light making it’s way in and the contractor’s string of bulbs just isn’t set up for taking high quality photos – sorry.

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Here is a look up into the light cove above the Master Bathroom tub. To get the quality of light we want, as well as washing the wall for almost 10′, we are using a series of par lamps (think of it as a series of individual light fixtures) and as a result, the light cove is pretty tall (16″) and deep (12″). This is another area that I know will look fantastic. I would even bet that once the marketing people for Victoria + Albert see their tub sitting in front of this wall, they are going to fall out of their chairs.

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So that’s the update on the mosaic walls – I hope to feature some more of the finishes as they arrive on site. The house is coming together really quickly and I don’t want to bore anybody by focusing on this project too often – but you can let me know when I’m getting close.

Cheers

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In the picture above, you are looking up at the ceiling of  an exterior patio. More specifically, you are looking at 1×1 ipê wood strips attached to medium density overlay board that has been painted black with an ipê wood trim-ring around a recessed light fixture. This is a much more decorative way to finish out a ceiling over a space you plan on using rather than simply applying a coat of paint.

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I know that not everyone reads drawings but for those of you who do, this is a detail through the section of the roof that covers one of the patios on the large modern project we have been working on for the last 2 years (it’s a big house…). Most of the notes above can be ignored for our purposes today but the ones worth paying attention to is the 1×1 WD @ 2″ O.C. (on center) with finish nails right above the one that calls out for 1/2″ MDO (which stands for Medium Density Overlay) board painted black. These two things coming together are what will make this ceiling something special.

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I thought I would include a little photo montage showing what MDO looks like. It’s basically plywood but it has a smooth weather-resistant resin overlay bonded to the wood by heat and pressure that is suitable for taking a finish (in our case, the finish is paint and then 1×1 ipê wood strips). The resin surface helps the wood resists water, weather, wear and degradation over time … we don’t always use it on our exterior patio ceilings but since we were planning on nailing wood strips to it, it was an obvious choice.

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I took the picture above one day during a site visit when the MDO panels were getting installed. On the right, the MDO panel, and on the left you can see the underside of the metal decking from the floor above the patio ceiling.

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This picture shows the MDO panels after they have been installed and have been painted black. You might have noticed that we did not call out for a particular wood species for the 1×1 wood strips – that’s because we were going to take our cue from the landscape architect and match wood species. The final selection ended up being the ipê, a FSC certified cultivated Brazilian hardwood noted for its durability and resistance to rot and insects. It also happens to be gorgeous wood and we use it frequently whenever we use wood on the exterior of our projects.

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Here is a look at the almost finished product – it stills needs to receive a final finish coat to help even out the tonal variations in the strips. We generally don’t add too strong of a color, and in this case, the final product will have a slight honey tint added to the finish coat. I would like to point something out that you might not notice unless you are me (because if you are, why aren’t you writing this post?), take another look at the spacing of the wood strips in relation to the wood rings around the recessed can lights … did you happen to notice that the ipê wood strips are tight to both sides of the wood rings and the spacing between the wood strips is still consistent? That isn’t on accident and was figured out early on before the MDO was installed.

That’s why we get to design and construction administration on these sorts of projects … we are fanatic about the end product.

Cheers – and thanks for reading.

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Things are really starting to heat up on our modern infill project and so I thought I would focus on one of the exterior finishes before most of the attention turns towards the interior for a while. This is the stainless steel metal screen that is very prominent on the front elevation, covering the large window just above the front door. This screen element has been in place early on from the schematic design phase.

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This is a sketch I drew up while sitting at a conference from almost three years ago. We had design meetings to discuss what objectives we had for this piece and I knew that in order to make this screen look the way it needed to look, it had to be incorporated into the structure of the building rather than looking applied after the fact. It was also important that the way the screen be built be reflected in the design – a concept that is very important to our office.

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This sketch just above is pretty explanatory even if it isn’t a work of art. Maybe if I knew that I would be using it here, explaining the design and construction process I would have drawn it differently (I can understand my thought process with fewer strokes than what others might need). All that having been said, it is still an efficient diagram of the final product and how it was assembled.

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This is the front entry way … looking at the large window, all that is in place are the long vertical members. You can see that the stainless steel members are welded to beams up above the soffit and align with the window mullions.

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In this picture, the horizontal members have been added. In the picture above, this is the corner of the front window. There is a detail here that I think is pretty interesting and was important in the original design concept and assembly technique. Lets take a closer look…

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You can see on the horizontal members that there are square notches at a regular interval. These are the spaces where the square stainless steel rods will get placed. The spacing is just under 4″ and the rods themselves are 3/8″ x 3/8″.

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Everything is in place (well, as far as you know it is…) This is what the stainless steel screen looks like once all the pieces are put in place.

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A close up look at the 3/8″ square stainless steel rods … that zinc standing seam metal siding behind the screen. If you missed the post on the zinc siding, you can play catch-up and read about it here.

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If you were walking up the front steps and about the ring the bell on this house, this is the view you would get. Part of the reason we installed this screen was to provide visual interest at the front elevation, but that’s not the most important reason. This house is pretty large and we have made many moves so that the scale of the building fit in well with the other houses in the neighborhood. The screen provides another layer of scale to the massing and helps bring the size of the entry component down to human size.  The layering of the different materials and the size of their pieces will help the building be readable to people viewing the house from the street.

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This photo is looking up at the backside of the stainless steel screen between it and the zinc siding.

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This picture probably doesn’t mean much to anyone other than me but I took it because of the shadow on the wall. We spent a lot of time trying to determine just how far the rods would extend down beneath the lowest horizontal support member. I built several 3d variations of this screen and entry wall in SketchUp and the shadow studies I looked at eventually helped us make our decision. When I was on-sight and saw the shadows seen above, I thought we had made the right decision.

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The latest look at the front entry. There is a handrail that is very similar in design to the entry screen that will eventually wrap the roof top terrace you can see on the upper left-hand side. In addition, the landscape will make a huge impact on this project … right now the house looks like it landed on this site from outer space.

Cheers

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A few years ago a vendor brought in an update to our VM Zinc product binder and in it were some samples of some new colors available for zinc panels – yes, yes, I know instead of focusing on how zinc looks, I should  point out some of the awesome sustainable facts about zinc (i.e. 90% of rolled zinc worldwide is recycled) but that’s really just the warm up act compared to how incredible the material looks. Ever since, we have been wanting to use zinc metal siding on a project. Problem was that there wasn’t a good fit for it on any of our projects, you can’t use this stuff on everything – you might want to but it just doesn’t work out that way.

Below is a screen shot from the SketchUp model I built during the design development phase. The front corner of the house is wrapped in the “Quartz” zinc panels.

We have a modern infill project going on (all the posts on this project can be sorted through here) and the stucco installation is finally complete. That means the frustrating shroud of scaffolding that has cocooned our project for the last few months is coming down and we can finally start to see some of the finished product. What I am currently most excited to see is the installation of the zinc standing seam wall panels that are on this job. We are actually using two different colors on this job – a beautiful grey zinc called “Quartz” and a mind-exploding black zinc called “Anthra”.

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This is the actual front of the house as it looked last Friday. The zinc panels have been going up at a steady pace – you can see them here with their white protective film still in place – which will remain in place until the project is just about finished (another 7 months). The orange you see here is the building wrap that will be underneath the zinc paneling.

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This is a view looking up at the front corner of the entry. The orange part you see on the bottom left cantilevers out over the entryway –  it’s role is to provide protective cover at the entry door as well house the stairs from the ground level up to the third level (where you can see the large window on the front elevation)

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A look at the fastener clips that hold each individual panel in place but also allows it to slide up and down. When the next adjacent panel gets installed, this fastener will no longer be visible.

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This is a close up look at the bottom corner of the longest vertical run of panels and if you know what you’re looking at – there is magic going on here … heads up technical experts at VM Zinc, we totally made your detail better…

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Here is the corner again… you see the bottom most piece of zinc running parallel to the ground? That’s our improvement … isn’t it awesome?!! Let me explain it – since metal expands and contracts as it gets hot and cold (up to 1″ in a 30′ panel) our installer (who is the jeebus of sheet metal flashing) added an extra piece at the bottom. Since a 30′ panel will expand and contract a different length than 20′ panel, this means that despite the panels shrinking and expanding at different lengths, there is always a consistent horizontal line of zinc at the bottom of the wall. And if you didn’t know – consistent looks intentional, inconsistent looks like a screw-up.

Ka-plowwwwwww!! Did I blow your mind with education? Ear mark this detail people, this is the sort of thing that makes the difference between pretty good and Grey Poupon.

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I can imagine the thought going through the minds of most of you - ”if this product is so great why isn’t it used more?” The reason we don’t it more often is because of the price … it’s very expensive. For the average standing seam profile – material cost and labor will run you in the ballpark of $20 per square foot. Yes, I know that all granites and most decorative wall tiles cost more than that but you generally don’t wrap your house with them. That’s a big reason you don’t see zinc on residential projects as much as commercial.

VM ZINC offers a full range of titanium-zinc products that includes sheets, coils and manufactured systems. Additionally they offer a pre-weathered appearing material through a process that modifies the crystalline surface structure only. This treatment is durable and long-lasting and means the Zinc is 100% recyclable (holla!). In fact, more than 90% of zinc used in the building industry today is recycled. Since  zinc has a naturally forming patina which is self-protecting, it requires minimal to no maintenance.

VM Zinc’s rolled titanium zinc is solid, pure material and is 100% fully recyclable. It is paint and lacquer free and offers low-energy consumption, low maintenance and a lifespan of 80–100 years.

Did you know:

• Rolled zinc was found in the ruins of Pompeii
• Centuries before zinc was discovered in the metallic form, its ores were used for healing wounds and sore eyes and also for making brass (Copper + zinc = brass), in the time of Augustus (20 B.C. – 14 A.D.)
• Zinc is also used to make bronze (=Copper + tin + zinc)
• 85% of all roofs in Paris utilize zinc – the result of Napoleon III commissioning Baron Haussman to modernize the city of Paris in 1852. Haussman had a relative in the zinc business
• A zinc roof typically lasts 100 + years, walls can last even longer
• The composition of most zinc building materials is very similar – Zinc is 99.995% pure with trace amounts of copper, titanium, and aluminum
• Zinc & Copper are adjacent to each other on the periodic table but are mortal enemies and should be separated (copper runoff will corrode zinc, but zinc will not do the same to copper)
• Over time, zinc develops a protective, self-healing patina (much like copper) which is matte grey in appearance
• The patina is a layer of zinc hydroxy-carbonate (you wanted to know this didn’t you? Don’t lie…)
• When the zinc is exposed to water, zinc hydroxide forms – then once exposed to O₂  & CO₂, the chemical reaction is what forms the patina
• Most zinc sold in the US is pre-weathered, which means it is run through an acidic bath to initiate a uniform patina that will further develop over time
• It is safe to use zinc in a coastal environment, although it will weather faster
• Like all metals, Zinc is “cold brittle” but can be installed in colder temperatures as long as the body of the material is heated to at least 45 deg F (7 deg C).
• Zinc is an extremely malleable material and can conform nicely to radii
• Zinc requires less energy than other non-ferrous metals to be produced – about 1/2 the energy used for copper and stainless steel & 1/4 the energy used for Aluminum

Cheers!

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