Archinect - Features

C.W. Keller, the Family-Run Fabricators Working with Google and WeWork, Discuss the Art of Streamlining Construction

2016-10-06T13:29:00-04:00

Shawn Keller is the President of C.W. Keller + Associates, an engineering and fabrication company headquartered 45 minutes north of Boston in Plaistow, NH. I’ll sheepishly admit that, despite their long history, until a handful of years ago I was only vaguely aware of the office and their work. I first came across them after spending an afternoon at the Boston Harbor Islands Pavilion construction site watching formwork go into place, and since then their name has come up with increasing frequency in discussions about fabrication shops really pushing the capabilities of digital tools.

3D-printing a better skeleton for concrete structures, with Platt Boyd of Branch Technology

2016-08-30T11:45:00-04:00

Platt Boyd is the Founder and CEO of Branch Technology, a start-up in Chattanooga, Tennessee that is actively pursuing the intersection of technology and construction. Their Cellular Fabrication (C-Fab) system combines industrial robotics and material science to 3D print a large-scale, optimized lattice system for concrete structures.

In order to source the design for the first full-scale application of their system, Branch recently held the Freeform Home Design Challenge—the winning entry by WATG Urban Architecture Studio will start production in early 2017.

'Matters of Scale' with Bill Zahner, head of the engineering-design consultancy behind the Petersen Automotive Museum's redesign

2016-05-31T09:56:00-04:00

For the second installation of the Matters of Scale series I’m talking to Bill Zahner, president and CEO of the A. Zahner Company. For many people Bill doesn’t need an introduction—he’s been involved with the engineering and fabrication of metal façade systems for the likes of Frank Gehry, Herzog & de Meuron, Diller Scofidio + Renfo, Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, and many, many others. When initially planning the Matters of Scale series, Bill’s name was first on my list of people that I wanted to include in the larger conversation, and I’m elated to be able to include him so early in the series.

Matters of Scale: Mass – an interview with Jim Durham of Quarra Stone

2015-12-11T20:58:00-05:00

Quarra Stone is a great example of the type of practices I’ll be talking to as part of the Matters of Scale series on Archinect. They’re specialty fabricators that are recognized experts in their field, employing many of the tools and technologies being discussed in academia to craft large-scale projects for some of the top architectural practices in the world. And when I say large-scale, I mean it – the projects that they’re involved with are massive and require much more than just milling plywood panels with a CNC router. But because they’re often thought of as just fabricators they’ve remained largely unknown to the larger architectural community.