Steel Connections Make Strong Impression
Anybody who appreciates modern architecture certainly appreciates exposed steel links, be they steel or steel to some other material. The material’s strength makes it perfect as a structural element in a variety of ways. Welding, bolting, bending and other fastenings and manipulations offer metal joints lots of character. This report concentrates on those links, looking at technical aspects but also the aesthetic richness they provide.
Brennan + Company Architects
Here’s a hybrid structure of timber roofing joists resting on a vertical steel beam. (The following photo examines the column.) The timber members are square, but the steel beam utilizes an H- or I-section, such that the material is distributed where it’s needed: the flanges (top and bottom) and web (vertical piece linking the flanges). The exact same market of material extends to the cantilever, where the base flange evaporates and the web tapers slightly.
Brennan + Company Architects
The previous photo hints at the apparent wood-steel hybrid of this column, but this perspective of the base shows it more clearly. What is most likely happening is the spaces between the flanges in the steel column (it is the exact same form as the beam over, only turned 90 degrees) are full of wood bits. This gives the impression that the steel is a sleeve on two sides of a wood column; it also produces a solid balance between wood and steel in the overall design.
This project is motivated by the vernacular architecture of the Pacific Northwest in its own use of salvaged wood and exposed steel. Here we see a timber beam hung from over; the steel pole and sleeve bolted to the beam do a whole lot to express that the vernacular inspiration.
jones | haydu
Here is a few more hybrid structure: timber beams connected to one another with metal plates. A couple closeups follow.
jones | haydu
The contrast between the pure timber along with the black steel is easily the most striking facet of this ceiling. Compare this design together with the former case, where the bolts are metallic; the black end of these bolts makes the contrast even more powerful.
jones | haydu
The alternation between regions with metal plates and regions without is also a striking facet of the design; the former are similar to punctuation marks on the beams.
Baldridge Architects
Steel-to-steel relations are of a different character than those of metal to wood, but their appeal remains evident. Inside this home, steel I-beams land on cross-shape columns (most likely composed of numerous steel contours welded together). The easy way in which the steel disappears into the concrete slab is the antithesis of this beam-column connection above; it’s a nonconnection, or at least one hidden out of sight.
Wheeler Kearns Architects
This gable-roof space features white-painted steel members who are tied together with sticks for lateral stability. Compared to this one in the previous case, the participants are smaller and more lightweight. This is due to the fact that the construction is a camp, not a full-fledged home, meaning there is less insulation and other materials in the walls and roof, adding up to some lightweight structure overall. A close-up (next) reveals the individual bits.
Wheeler Kearns Architects
Inside this close-up we could see that the verticals between the windows and the members supporting the roof are produced from steel bits bolted together in an L shape. A plate bolted involving the angles receives the strain pole.
Wheeler Kearns Architects
Steel connections can also happen outside of large structural components. This railing is made of tubes with a wire-mesh grid infill. It’s a simple design that relies on specific connections, visible within the next close-up.
Wheeler Kearns Architects
Welding is your main means of making connections almost imperceptible. Here we can observe the welded seam of the top railing and post. A perforated plate below the top railing gets the wire cables.
A couple decorative bits finish this report. This metal panel is a superb method of breaking up a timber wall, developing a focus but also acting as a background for flowers inserted into the tube sticking through the bottom flange. It harks to the way Frank Lloyd Wright would look holders for weeds, but it is contemporary and even more integral with your home.
Charles Rose Architects Inc..
Custom Coffee Table – $13,000
This last example is really a coffee table by Charles Rose Architects with thighs that definitely don’t look like traditional table legs. Instead of four legs at a grid, there are 22 (I think) slender legs holding up the timber surface.
Charles Rose Architects Inc..
Custom Coffee Table – $13,000
Choosing steel for the legs allows them to be slim and allows for top and base plates which are exceptional: The former is tucked inside the very best, and the latter is jagged, such as an island the table sits upon.
