This week I had the pleasure of working on another project with architect and friend Rob Zirkle. He’s already filled his modern Oakland home with our grilles, and now adding some gates and panels to the exterior. I wanted to write about this because it was such a joy to work directly with him on this, nothing better than an architect’s mind and scrupulous attention to detail. A dream for us! My project manager, Jessica, was out of town so I was more involved than usual on the technical side, coordinating, approving, and directing the CAD drawings.
All of our materials are sourced, laser cut, and fabricated in the US, but our CAD drawers and other behind the scenes teammates are scattered throughout the world. Youssef, one of our CAD drawers, is located in Egypt! I’m actually going to visit him this summer in Cairo! Youssef, a structural engineer, truly saved the day with this project. We were on the VERGE of cutting (laser-cutters literally waiting for me to say green light) , when he pointed out that the final drawings for Rob’s panels, showed the pattern being a tad larger. The motif changed from 2.5” to 3”. This doesn’t sound like much on a big panel, but when Rob and I reviewed the new and old side by side, it made a HUGE difference.
We took advantage of the redraw opportunity. Youssef spent time over the weekend, rescaling the pattern, and working with Rob to make the circle motifs align well against the borders. I have designed my patterns in perfect repeat so that we can repeat them to the very edge, but sometimes, as in this case we need to customize the edges so it looks just right. This photo shows one of the final details we were working on—is this little piece of motif as it attaches to the solid border OK? Are we OK with that little bump and not a straight edge? We wanted the attachment as drawn to add a bit of extra stability to the panel. Rob answered right away, yes, fine. The panels were cut and delivered over the next four days (this was an expedited job). When I see these installed in Rob’s yard, I’m going to completely notice the border, scale of pattern and pattern alignment, and breathe a sigh of gratitude for both Rob and Youssef, who enabled Modern Metal to deliver a beautiful precision-cut custom job to the Zirkle residence. Thank you both!
