architects – Shanghai Metal Corporation

Copper and architecture

Copper is used in architecture more and more often. Copper claddings, copper walls, copper roofs…One Belgium atelier – Atelier Vens Vanbelle designed a curving copper-clad extension that was added to a house in Ghent, Belgium. It looks retro-futuristic and surprisingly stylish.

This extension is for accommodating an extra bathroom, bedroom, a new foyer area to minimize a disruption to already established spaces and family routines.

When you look at this house from the outside, it has kind of maritime feel which is accentuated by the domed portholes.

The whole extension is covered with copper panels and supported by a copper-clad wall. More about this architectural design dezeen.com.

Shanghai Metal Corporation offers various types of copper, copper clad, copper sheet/plate. For more information visit our website or send us inquiry. English speaking staff will guide you further. Download a new application by scanning QR code or follow us on Social Media.

Silvia M.//SMC Editor

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Credits : googleimages, dezeen.com

Aluminum Windows For a Perfect Home?

Are you going to replace your old windows and you are still not sure whether use PVC or aluminium windows? Here are some pros, cons and features of aluminium windows that you might find useful before making a final decision.

When and why are aluminium windows ideal?

You should consider aluminium windows when cold isn’t an important factor. Modern aluminium frames with high tolerances and standards can keep heat much more efficient than they did before. Aluminium windows are mostly used for commercial buildings. PVC windows are not very able to withstand anything more than a normal residential environment where the door is opened and closed few times a day. When you compare prices of PVC windows and aluminium windows, of course PVC windows are cheaper, PVC is a plastic and aluminium is one of the metals. What’s more, architects will always prefer aluminum over PVC. Why?

Noise reduction – Aluminium is stronger and heavier than PVC

Suitable for unusually shaped windows – You can easily manipulate aluminum into a shape you need or way

More colour choice – Aluminum framed windows can be powder-coated into many colors.

Easy maintenance – Aluminum doesn’t need re-painting, doesn’t rot or wrap and it is rigid and strong enough to bear a load of window lintels.

Better operability – Aluminum doors will continue to open and slide smoothly over the years.

As mentioned above aluminum might be not a good choice for colder climates as a condensation or frost forms inside the windows may present few problems. However, aluminum represents a great environmentally friendly material and aluminum framed windows could be a perfect choice.

CW Summer 0153 What is better? Aluminium or PVCu? — Aluminum bifolding doors

Shanghai Metal Corporation offers a wide range types of aluminum as aluminum sheets and plates, aluminum composite panels and others. For more information visit our website or send us inquiry. English speaking staff will guide you further. Download a new application by scanning QR code below or follow us on Social Media.

Silvia M.// SMC Editor

Read more articles written by this author here.

Credits: doityourself.com, aluminiumtradesupply.co.uk, avanti.com.au, windowsandframes.org, kozijnpro.nl

Dubai with Its Twisted Skyscraper Is Planning To Build the World’s Tallest Twin Towers

Dubai, a place with iconic skyscrapers, high-rise buildings, the world’s tallest building (Burj Khalifa with 829,8m) and the twisted skyscraper,is now planning to build the world’s tallest twin towers.

Twisted skyscraper

Architects Skidmore Owings & Merrill (SMO) were the ones who designed twisted Cayan Tower and now it is completed. This skyscraper that is 307 meters high. The twisted profile of this tower reduces wind forces as it disperses it around the exterior. Metal facade was designed to screen interior from a desert sunlight. Cayan Tower now became a significant part of Dubai’s 21st century skyline.

Twin Towers

Developers Emaar Properties and Dubai Holding want to build a huge leisure and residential area including towers that will be as its centerpiece. Dubai Creek Home, as they named it, will be a new landmark and tourist area with 39, 000 homes, 22 hotels, retail outlets, tourist attractions and of course twin towers.

There are no concrete architects named for this project and the construction date of twin towers still hasn’t been confirmed. Also twin towers’ height remains as a developers’ secret.

Shanghai Metal Corporation offers customers high-quality metal and steel products. For more information, please don’t hesitate and visit our main website or send us inquiry. English speaking staff will guide you further. Download also an application by scanning QR code or follow us on Social Media.

Silvia M.//SMC Editor

You can read more articles written by this author here.

Credits : dezeen.com, telegraph.co.uk, citymetric.com, googleimages

Can a reflection from glass-steel skyscraper melt things?

The owner of a luxury car Jaguar XJ parked his sweetheart across the street from the curvy 37 story glass-and-steel skyscraper designed by Uruguayan architect Rafael Viñoly in London before an afternoon business meeting. Only two hours later, this car was giving off smells of melting and displaying clear signs of damage. The developers of the building who nicknamed it as “Walkie Talkie” for its distinctive shape, agreed to pay for the damages.

So how could skyscraper melt the car?

“Fundamentally it’s reflection,” Chris Shepherd of the Institute of Physics told the BBC “If a building creates enough of a curve with a series of flat windows, which act like mirrors, the reflections all converge at one point, focusing and concentrating the light.” The curves of “Walkie Talkie” skyscraper acted like a magnifying glass to concentrate the light on only one spot, the exact spot where Jaguar XJ was parked.

Parking has been suspended in the areas affected by the reflect sunlight. — “That spot”

The carpet in a nearby barber shop has a burn mark on the carpet from sunlight reflected off the 'Walkie Talkie' tower. — A burn mark on the carpet from sunlight reflected off the “Walkie Talkie” Tower

According to Kheir Al-Kodmany, an associate professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Walkie Talkie’s designers forgot about the fact that southern-facing building would generate a lot of heat. If it had been a northern-facing building, it would have been an issues. Luckily London isn’t a very sunny city.

“As we get more shiny, glassy metal buildings, reflected light will become a bigger deal,” John Frederick, a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Chicago says. “The high reflection is good if you’re inside trying to keep intense sunlight out, but if you’re outside, you’ll be the recipient of that reflected light.” Well, sometimes it is just better to walk, leave your car safely parked at home and protect the environment.

Shanghai Metal Corporation offers high-quality steel products, stainless steel, galvanized steel, steel and other metal products widely used in architecture, automotive industry etc. For more information don’t hesitate to visit our website or send us inquiry. English speaking staff will guide you further. Download a new application by scanning QR code below or follow us on Social Media.

Silvia M.//SMC Editor

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Sources : theverge.com, popsci.com, nydailynews.com, googleimages

Architecture using carbonated drink cans

When you finish drinking your beer from beer can, what do you usually do with an empty can? Just throw it to the garbage? Well, you have more options : make your own beer can sofa, get some hamburger for free or you can use it as a material for a facade of your house.

Can Cube’s facade is a system of aluminium carbonated drink cans which are enclosed in an aluminium frame. It was designed by Archi Union Architects using and integrating renewable systems to make it highly efficient and sustainable. This structure saves the energy that is normally wasted during recycling processes, by reusing them in their current form.

This Can Cube design is an innovative residential and office building in Shanghai, China. The two first floors are used as the office space, the next levels are aimed to be a space for private living.

Aluminium frame keeps the structure light and easily adjustable by its occupants. Windows sections within the structure provide a full control of sunlight during the all seasons. What is more, the facade works along the underground heating, cooling systems, rainwater filtration and solar energy systems, all of this minimize the waste of energy.

Shanghai Metal Corporation offers customers high-quality aluminium and other metal products. For more information please don’t hesitate and visit the website or send us inquiry. English speaking staff will be more than glad to help you. Download also our application by scanning QR code below or follow us on Social Media.

Silvia M.//SMC Editor

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Credits : archdaily.com, worldconstructionnetwork.com, googleimages

Unique steel facade

Are you annoyed when somebody is staring at you while you are at home? Yes, you may have the curtains, but there is still that feeling : “Oh what if people see me?”

Amano Design Office found a way for solving this a bit paranoiac problem. He wrapped the office block in Tokyo with steel ribbons. Their client, Dear Jingumae Building asked them to come up with some idea how to give the existing structure the new facade and keep it from the eyes of the neighbours.

Designers wanted to cover it in such a way that would be accepted by passersby while standing out of surrounded buildings.

This 25 years old structure served as the office before but now it will accommodate a shop on one of its floors. The curving stainless steel wraps around the floors creating curves.

Large windows can be glimpsed through gaps in the louvres and that way allow light to gently enter the building. A design team expected this building to vitalize neighborhood and add richness and variety to the street. An external staircase leads up from the facade to the first floor.

Shanghai Metal Corporation offers wide range of steel products. For more information you can visit the main website or send us inquiry. English speaking staff will help you to find the most suitable product for you. Download our new application by scanning QR code or follow us on Social Media.

Silvia M.//SMC Editor

Read more articles written by this author here.

Credits : dezeen.com, steelmag.com, googleimages

Scandinavian architects don’t use just wood

Tham & Videgård, House Husarö, metal-clad house, swedish architecture, sweden, stockholm, skylights, timber, timber interior, open plan, tectonic rationality, hardwood, sliding doors — A metal-clad house

Wooden cabins and houses are typical for Scandinavian architecture. It perfectly fits into beautiful nature, surrounded by forest, as in a fairy tale. But Stockholm-based architecture firm Tham & Videgård came up with another kind of project. They designed a modern metal-clad House Husarö.

This house was built for client’s growing family and it is located on island in an outer Stockholm. It is placed high on the landscape surrounded by pines, so that it has overlook view of the sea.

Starting point for the house was the sea view, the flat and smooth bedrock and light conditions. Tham & Videgård had a modest and relatively low budget, so they approached tectonic rationality to support a specific spatial structure. The pitched roof is clad in folded black metal sheets. Three sides of the building have sliding doors opening out to the views of the landscape.

Inside, the house is divided into two levels. A communal open area with the living room and kitchen on the ground floor and then upper private level with the bedrooms and a playroom. There is a contrast between dark metal facade and a light-colored interior. A skylight that runs along the ridge of the roof on the upper level underscores the vertical space and enhances the experience of seclusion.

8757 051 — A contrast between interior and a dark metal facade

In Shanghai Metal Corporation we offer a wide range of metal products, roof forming machinery and other products. For more information visit our website or send us inquiry. Our English speaking staff will guide you further. You could also follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn or read our blog. Download a new application by scanning QR code below.

Silvia M.//SMC Editor