With only three (business) days to go until we officially open METALCON 2019, here are some exciting show updates regarding the CONTECH technology hub, conference schedule and the METALCON APP. METALCON 2019 is taking place in the “Steel City” of Pittsburgh next week, October 16-19, 2019!
We are excited to announce that technology companies, Dronegenuity and Felux, have been added to further enhance this new feature at METALCON.
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As a leading industry voice, PSMJ Founder and CEO Frank A. Stasiowski examines the state of our industry today and reveals the disrupters that will radically alter it by 2030. Just as a far-off earthquake can cause a Tsunami, forces and trends building now will shake the traditional design industry. In his best-selling book, IMPACT 2030, Frank outlines how demographics, globalization, government expansion, and technology advances can benefit firms that plan ahead — and be devastating for those that don’t prepare.
Continue readingAs the expression goes, “timing is everything!” Published this week by ArchDaily.com in partnership with Metropolis, they provide us with an in-depth look at Pittsburgh … home of METALCON 2019! In two weeks, thousands of exhibitors and attendees in the metal construction industry will gather in the “Steel City” for the first time in its 29 year show history. Chosen for its illustrious history in the steel and metal making industry, Pittsburgh was also selected as this year’s show location based on many of the items cited in this article. In their latest volume of Imagining the Modern: Architecture and Urbanism of Pittsburgh Renaissance, editors Chris Grimley, Michael Kubo, and Rami el Samahy explore the reasons behind the Pittsburgh’s revival earning a status of “renaissance“.
The following news was released to the national media this week. A special panel discussion featuring women in metal and roofing will be held on Wednesday, October 16 at 1:00 pm at METALCON 2019, taking place at Pittsburgh’s David L. Lawrence Convention Center. For the full news release, see below or click HERE.
As reported by DesignandBuildWithMetal.com this week, “The Metal Construction Association (MCA) has created a new group focused on increasing awareness of Metal Composite Material (MCM) for the architectural building envelope. The MCM Alliance supports product performance testing, initiates research, and promotes education and actions to influence public policies for the utilization and growth of MCM in the marketplace.”
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Magnificent Metal Monday travels “across the pond” today to highlight Scotland’s Falkirk Wheel, the only fully rotating boat lift in the world. According to UK based Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE), the wheel was built as part of the £85.4m Millennium link project to reunite the Forth and Clyde and Union Canals in Scotland. The canals had previously been linked by a staircase of 11 locks which took nearly a day to pass through. The locks were dismantled in 1933. Before the Falkirk Wheel was constructed, it wasn’t possible to get from the Union Canal to the Forth and Clyde by boat. It now takes about 10 minutes for a boat to be lifted from the Forth and Clyde to the aqueduct 24m above that leads to the Union Canal. The Wheel opened in 2002.
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Have you noticed how so many of the stories in the industry trades have been about metal panels lately? It’s hard to keep up! Metal panels are clearly a popular solution in the construction world given their aesthetics, the variety and flexibility of materials and cost effectiveness. Members of MCA’s Insulated Metal Panel Group will be on hand at METALCON 2019 next month on the Exhibit Floor as well as offering their expertise during educational sessions (details below). There are too many stories to include them all, but here are some recent ones.
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While I was picking my daughter up at the gym the other night, it dawned on me that we have spent countless hours in metal buildings over the past 7 years. With approximately 400 hours of practice per year times nearly 7 years plus gym meets, we are talking nearly 3000 hours! Then I began to realize that these metal buildings are everywhere and truly woven into people’s everyday lives. From gymnasiums, churches and schools, to sports arenas, warehouses, airplane hangars, and retail infrastructures (cue: Amazon distribution centers) … so for Magnificent Metal Monday today, let’s explore what makes these metal structures so functional.
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The Metal Construction News Building and Roofing Awards are celebrating their 33rd year of showcasing the innovation and excitement of the metal construction industry. The deadline is approaching – all entries must be received by SEPTEMBER 20, 2019!
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Magnificent Metal Monday travels to Columbia, South America to highlight how this once war-torn and one of the most violent places on Earth, is now focused on saving lives. Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the country so Colombian real estate development and construction company, Construcciones Planificadas, decided to lead the fight against the disease by sponsoring and building a new, state-of-the-art and sustainable cancer facility in Bogotá.
Recently featured recently in Redshift by Autodesk‘s newsletter, the facility is in the beginning stages of construction and scheduled to open in 2021. The 100,000-square-meter (1,076,391-square-foot) Luis Carlos Sarmiento Angulo Cancer Treatment and Research Center (CTIC) will initially serve more than 7,000 cancer patients every year with facilities comprising 128 hospital rooms, 30 intensive-care beds, eight radiotherapy bunkers, six operating rooms, 60 chemotherapy chairs, a hematology and bone marrow–transplant clinic, and a 10,000-square-meter (107,639-square-foot) research building.
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Metal roll forming might not be as simple as you may think; machines can come in a variety of sizes, product outputs, uses, speeds, and more. Our friends with New Tech Machinery break it down with their Rollforming Learning Center. “Whether you notice it or not, products made using the process of metal rollforming are everywhere. Items could include something as visible as metal roofing or garage doors, or products working behind the scenes, like pipes, window frames, and countless others.”
According to the Metal Construction Association (MCA), roll forming is defined as: “A continuous bending operation in which a strip of metal, typically coiled steel or aluminum, is passed through consecutive sets of rolls, or stands, each performing only an incremental part of the bend until the desired cross-section profile is obtained. Portable roll forming is ideal for producing parts with long lengths or in large quantities and are designed so they can be moved easily to various locations or job sites.”
The history of roll forming is an interesting one. Dating back as early as 600 B.C., this archaic rollforming typically involved hammering ductile metals found in the earth, including copper and gold, with hard objects until they were flattened or formed into a shape. More advanced forms of rollforming developed over time with one of the earliest known designs of a more modern rollformer belonging to Leonardo da Vinci with a 1480 sketch of a “rolling mill” depicting a material passing through cylindrical rollers to be flattened. The first actual industrial rollforming/metal working plant on record launched in the early 1600s in the United Kingdom.
With over 25 years fabricating and producing portable metal roll forming equipment, New Tech Machinery knows the importance of education on how metal roll forming began and why it’s still so important to this day, especially if you work in the metal fabrication industry. If metal roll forming machinery didn’t exist, humans would have to put forth significant extra labor using press brakes, folders, and other equipment to make metal products. Instead, machines produce and roll thousands of pounds of metal per day significantly increasing productivity.
If you’ve come to METALCON shows in the past, you know that it is more than just exhibits. Attendees have the opportunity to learn from key industry experts on important topics. At METALCON 2019, one of these topics includes a special two-part program on Roll Forming for the Metal Construction Industry.
The first of the two-part program will be held on Wednesday, October 16 from 8:30 am – 12:00 pm and led by the following industry experts: Ryan Durst, Vice President Sales & Marketing, The Bradbury Company and Joe Beck, President, Beck Automation, Brian Rodgers, Sr. Application Engineer, Formtek, Inc., Andy Allman, President, AMS Controls Inc., and Steve Ebel, President, Roll Form Solutions Inc. They will cover the following topics: Considerations for Metal Building Roll Formers, Utilizing Exiting Capital Equipment and Tooling, Improve Profitability & Competitiveness through Computer Integrated Manufacturing and Proper Roll Form Tooling Setup and Troubleshooting. For details on Part I, please click HERE.
The second of the two-part program will be held on Thursday, October 17 from 8:30 am – 12:00 pm and led by the following industry experts: Brian Rodgers, Sr. Applications Engineer, Formtek, Inc., Paul Williams, Director of Sales, Hill Engineering, and Chuck Summerhill, Technical Sales/Engineer, TEKFAB. The following topics will be covered: Material and How it Affects Metal Building Products in the Roll Forming Process, Creative Options for Punching/Shearing/Cutoff Challenges in the Metal Building Industry, Advanced Roll Forming of Steel Framing Components, and Automation and Material Handling for Roll Formed Products – Emphasizing Operator Safety, Labor Reduction & High-Speed Production. For details on Part II, click HERE.
Part I is Session Number: SP4 on Wednesday, October 16, 2019: 8:30 AM – 12:00 PM and Part II is Session Number: SP8 on Thursday, October 17, 2019: 8:30 AM – 12:00 PM; Cost is $160 for each part. REGISTER TODAY.
This program is sponsored by the Fabricators & Manufacturers Association, International® (FMA).
Magnificent Metal Monday hails the readers today by featuring Metal Construction News’ Readers’ Choice Awards for 2019. MCN comments, “In our sixth annual Readers’ Choice Awards, Metal Construction News readers identified four different roofing underlayments as their top products for the last year, and of those four, three were in the top six of overall products.
The list contains products ranging from metal roofing panels to insulated metal panels to chimney pots and caps. There were also a number of energy reduction products rising to the surface, including insulation materials and daylighting products that help reduce energy demands. But the bigger change in the 2019 Readers’ Choice Awards compared to previous years is the number of tools our readers were interested in. The Empire Level Manufacturing Co.’s TRUE Blue Squares took the top spot.
For a product to be considered for the Readers’ Choice Awards, it must have been featured in the editorial coverage between the May 2018 and April 2019 issues of Metal Construction News. MCN tracks the leads generated by each product from their readers and ranks them according to the number of leads. Continue reading the full story for the full list of the 30 winners.
Many of these manufacturing companies will be exhibiting at METALCON 2019, October 16-18, 2019 in Pittsburgh. Check out the FLOOR PLAN for the largest event in North America dedicated to metal in design and construction and register today. On behalf of the METALCON team, congratulations to the winners of the 2019 Metal Construction News Readers’ Choice Awards.
Magnificent Metal Monday travels to Pittsburgh, PA, the location of METALCON 2019, for a look at a unique three-story home built in one of the city’s dense urban neighborhoods. Designed by David W. Nitchkey, a principal at CORE Architects of Pittsburgh, he opted for the use of exposed fastener panels from McElroy Metal for the home’s exterior.
Nitchkey’s home appeared in a recent issue of DesignandBuildwithMetal.com as a “featured project.” Nitchkey explains, “My wife and I both wanted to live in a contemporary urban home, reflecting a modern design on both the exterior and the interior. We chose metal to create the contemporary industrial aesthetic of the exterior. Beyond aesthetics, the exposed fastener metal panel system provided an economical solution and the material is basically maintenance free. After maintaining a large 1950s era suburban home for 14 years, we were ready to spend less time on exterior maintenance and more time enjoying the benefits of living in a city neighborhood.” Part of their decision to use metal was also to pay homage to the city’s steeped history in steel and metal making.
The home measures 2,500 square feet on a narrow 20-foot by 60-foot lot. “As a designer, I looked at the exterior cladding as an exercise in graphic design,” Nitchkey says. “The dimensional profiles, direction of the panel patterns, panel sizes and seaming, and exposed fastener colors, all became part of the layers of the design. Conceptually, the first floor horizontal U-Panels in a Charcoal color, provide a dark base to ground the structure and create a platform to support the silver Galvalume volume of the second and third floors, clad in vertical U-Panels. To provide a visual interest, ‘the wedge’ utilizes horizontal Mega Rib panels in Regal White. The added depth of these panels contrasts nicely against the shallower U-Panels.
Abreez Contracting of Pittsburgh installed the McElroy panels: 1,140 square feet of U-Panels in Charcoal, 3,408 square feet of U-Panels in unfinished Galvalume, 360 square feet of Mega-Rib panels in Regal White and 162 square feet of Matrix soffit panels in unfinished Galvalume.
McElroy Metal markets metal roofing, siding, and substructural products for architectural, residential, commercial, and industrial applications. McElroy has 13 manufacturing facilities across the United States. You can visit McElroy Metals and see their latest product line in Booth #1740 at METALCON 2019.
DesignandBuildwithMetal.com will also be on hand at METALCON 2019 with their generous support of the cash prizes for the Innovation Station Scavenger Hunt.
Magnificent Metal Monday travels to Champagne, France, where ancient history meets modern sustainability. Instead of tearing down and rebuilding, check out this “green renovation of a midcentury monstrosity.” As featured this week in Redshift by Autodesk, Aurélien Leriche, architect manager of Paris-based firm OuyOut, saw an opportunity to propose a green renovation for CDER, a management and accounting association, when they wanted to expand their offices in Épernay, the capital of Champagne.
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METALCON 2019 is a “one-stop shop” for key training, education and one-on-one time with industry experts and exhibitors. It is a critical addition to any “punch list” for a roofing job. Recently featured in Metal Construction News, having a punch list is necessary in any metal roofing job whether it is a roof retrofit or new construction. The information that can be obtained at METALCON this year will give you the tools to complete a job accurately.
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According to Danny Kerr, Co-Founder of Breakthrough Academy and METALCON guest speaker, “Summer is the time to produce, but your crew members may have other things on their mind.” In an article that appeared in the July issue of Metal Construction News, Danny explains, ” It’s the dead of summer. The days are as long as they are hot. You and your team are doing your darndest to keep up with an insanely busy production season.” He calls it the “midsummer stutter” … a name he uses to describe the nose dive in productivity that seems to plague teams in late June and July.
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Metal Construction News announced MBCEA’s Building of the Year Awards for 2019 in their July issue. Top honors went to the BARNES Buildings and Management Group based in Weymouth, MA, for their Boston MedFlight Hangar 12A project. The awards were announced at MBCEA’s Annual Meeting that took place in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina May 2-4.
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Magnificent Metal Monday take us to London, England, where a 23-m-long and 10-m-high “Neuron Pod” has opened at the science learning center at Queen Mary University of London’s campus in the area of Whitechapel. The Guardian reports, “Standing like an intergalactic porcupine, covered with long glowing quills that sway gently in the breeze, it is a startling thing to encounter in this unremarkable corner of hospital buildings and curry houses.” The structure was built from 13 pieces of weathering steel that were welded together on site.
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Last month, Metal Construction News announced the eight honorees who were inducted into the 2019 Metal Construction Hall of Fame. These honorees represent the breadth of the industry and showcase the innovation and excitement that the industry offers.
Over the past seven years, the Metal Building Manufacturers Association, the Metal Building Contractors & Erectors Association and the Metal Construction Association have partnered together to identify 51 Hall of Famers who represent the excitement of the industry.
This year’s honorees include:
For the full story and details on each of the honorees, check out June’s digital issue of Metal Construction News (page 16). Metal Construction News is the original news magazine of the metal construction industry and is the premier source for news, products and strategies. Devoted to educating building systems contractors, general contractors, suppliers, manufacturers and more, each issue features project overviews, field techniques, and technical issues dealing with the metal construction industry. They have been a long standing partner publication to METALCON.
On behalf of the METALCON team, we congratulate all of the inductees on their well deserved honor and recognition for their years of service to the industry.
In a city where “encores” are a nightly occurrence, Magnificent Metal Monday takes us to New York City where PPG has received their own “encore” at the Jacob Javits Convention Center. Featured in a recent issue of one of METALCON’s partner publications, DesignandBuildwithMetal.com, “PPG Duranar® coatings were selected to reprise their role as the metal coating of choice for the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in Manhattan.”
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Our friends with MBCI shared in a blog post, “Just because you’ve been installing roofing for 30 years, doesn’t mean installer training and certification isn’t necessary. From a bottom line perspective, it’s important for companies to be proactive in making sure there is always someone on their team who is a certified installer for the products they use—or might use.”
With the knowledge that comes with certification, you’ll be able to assist contractors and consumers alike in choosing the right metal roof for their needs. Being a certified provider, homeowners, design professionals and contractors will be able to clearly differentiate quality levels of steep slope metal roofing by applying industry performance standards.
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After wrapping up two weeks of European travel, I couldn’t help but marvel at some of the more modern metal structures juxtaposed against historical thousand year old structures. For Magnificent Metal Monday we’ll travel to Dublin, Ireland, where one metal structure in particular caught my eye – there in the middle of Dublin’s historical town centre stands “The Spire,” a 120 meter high stainless steel spire.
The Dublin Spire, also known as the “Monument of Light,” was the winning entry in an architectural competition to provide a replacement for Nelson’s Pillar which was blown up in 1966. Nelson’s Pillar was a large granite column capped by a statue of Horatio Nelson, built in the centre of Dublin’s well known O’Connell Street. Nelson’s Pillar was completed in 1809 when Ireland was part of the United Kingdom; it survived until March 1966, when it was severely damaged by explosives planted by Irish republicans.
The column was originally dedicated to the memory of Nelson, which was erected in 1808; the foundation stone having been laid by the Duke of Richmond, Lord Lieutenant, on the 5th of February in that year. William Wilkins of Norwich designed it, but the statue of Nelson is by an Irish sculptor, Thomas Kirk, R.H.A. It was blown up in 1966 in the middle of the night, but the head of Nelson has been preserved by the Dublin Civic Museum.
The Dublin Spire is one hundred and twenty metres tall, making it by far the tallest structure in Dublin’s city centre. It is three metres wide at the base and tapers to a 15 centimentre wide beacon at the top. The steel underwent “shot peening” in order to subtly reflect the light falling on it. The pattern around the base of the Spire is based on a core sample of earth and rock formation taken from the ground where the spire stands. The pattern was applied by bead blasting the steel through rubber stencil masks whose patterns were created by water jet cutting based on core sample drawings supplied by the contractor.The top section is perforated and lit by small LEDs. The structure looks different under every lighting condition. At night, its stainless steel surface resembles black satin, while early morning and last light gave it a steely blue colour. In daytime under bright sunlight, it doesn’t look real from a distance, instead it looks like a computer simulation.
As we passed it on our tour, I wondered what this sleek steel structure was doing in the middle of this historical city. Our guide settled my curiosity and explained that the modern day spire is thought to serve as a symbol of moving Ireland forward into the next century.
Did you know that you will have four chances to win a $500 CASH PRIZE at METALCON 2019? All you have to do is visit all ten Innovation Stations located on the show floor and scan the METALCON APP for a chance to be entered into the daily drawing. Cash prizes are generously donated by METALCON’s long standing partner publication, DesignandBuildwithMetal.com. Drawings will be held on Wednesday at 2 pm and 5pm and Thursday at 2pm and 5pm; entry is based on cumulative scans not daily scans and a person may only win one time.
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Magnificent Metal Monday (MMM) takes us to Houston, Texas, to take a look at the new home of NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC) Biomedical Research & Environmental Sciences Division, a facility responsible for enhancing and studying astronaut and human health. Approximately 20,600 square feet of CENTRIA‘s metal panels provided the design solution for the “space age” building.
As featured in the April 2 issue of DesignandBuildwithMetal, Dennis Patrick, Architectural Discipline Leader and Professional Associate with HDR, the firm responsible for the building design, commented that “CENTRIA’s panels were the right fit for our needs.” “We needed a product that was able to resist material distortion from excessive solar heat and hold up to the tough Houston weather, including UV exposure and coastal marine corrosion.” CENTRIA used their Concept Series CS-220 and CS-260 single-skin rainscreen panels feature concealed fasteners and a common-lock joint that allows the panels to be integrated with each other. The panels can be installed vertically or horizontally and have an unbroken appearance that further adds to the product’s aesthetic versatility.
CENTRIA innovations in architectural metal wall and roof systems are helping building teams around the world envision metal as the future of the building envelope. Based in the Pittsburgh area, CENTRIA metal architectural systems are the perfect combination of science and aesthetics, offering advanced thermal and moisture protection technology, the broadest spectrum of design options, truly integrated components, and superior sustainability. CENTRIA is a Cornerstone Building Brands company.
METALCON is thrilled to welcome CENTRIA back as an exhibitor at METALCON 2019. Be sure to visit them in Booth #747 on the show floor. For a little pre-planning, check out METALCON’s floor plan. Partner publication, DesignandBuildwithMetal.com, will also be at this year’s show and once again be the sponsor of the cash prizes for the Innovation Stations Scavenger Hunt.
SUBSCRIBE to METALCON and be the first to know when registration is open. METALCON 2019 will take place in Pittsburgh, October 16-18.
Magnificent Metal Monday honors arguably the greatest member of the modernist generation of architects today. I.M. Pei died last week at the age of 102.
The Chinese-American architect was born on April 26, 1917 in Suzhou, China, grew up in Hong Kong and Shanghai and then moved to the United States to study architecture. When he received his Pritzker Prize in 1983, the jury citation stated that he “has given this century some of its most beautiful interior spaces and exterior forms.” His most notable work is the Louvre Pyramid in Paris, France.
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Although imposed over a year ago, steel tariffs are still making headlines in today’s news. How have they affected your business this past year? Earlier today, Bloomberg News reported that after one year since the tariffs were imposed that it’s had mixed results. They are reporting that while the steel industry saw some growth in job creation, it was at a cost of approximately $900,000 per job to the taxpayer. And while American steel producers of materials like nuts and bolts saw significant gains in sales as a result of increasing their prices, large American steel companies like NUCOR and U.S. Steel saw their overall shares slump in the past year.
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Metal Construction News just published their comprehensive report on the Top Metal Builders of 2018 based on steel tonnage usage. Overall they reported 2018 to be a strong year for metal builders based on both tonnage and square footage. Over the last 9 years, the tonnage of steel used annually by the largest metal builders has trended upward except for a slip in 2016 and 2017.
Overall, the reported use of steel jumped from 1,801.4 tons in 2017 to 2,495.8, which is more than a 36 percent increase. The size of the buildings constructed jumped more than 19 percent from 509,475 to 606,551 square feet. According to the report, CDMG, located in Canonsburg, PA, had the largest ranking increase in both tonnage and square footage.
Labor shortage still remains the number one challenge that the industry faced in 2018 and is still facing in 2019.
To read the full report, click HERE.
Metal Construction News has been a long-standing METALCON Partner Publication and will be on hand at METALCON 2019 in Pittsburgh, October 16-18, 2019. Make plans today to join us at the only event focused on the use of metal in design and construction. Your Total Experience awaits you.
The Construction Industry Safety (CISI) group, comprised of more than 70 national and global construction firms, and the Incident and Injury Free CEO (IIF) Forum have joined forces with a single aim: to inspire everyone in the industry to be leaders in safety. The Construction Industry Safety Initiative (CISI) includes twelve major contractors who come together every other year for a two-day meeting to discuss only one thing – SAFETY. CISI holds a Safety Summit that includes over 30 major contractors in the United States. The CEO Forum is led by a group of senior construction industry leaders who are committed to sharing Incident and Injury-Free™(IIF™) safety best practices. They have met bi-annually since 2009 with the objective to both sustain and recreate their present IIF™ journeys while at the same time creating the possibility of an industry-wide safety transformation.
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We all know that Pittsburgh carries the moniker “Steel City,” but, did you know that Pittsburgh was the first city to build an all aluminum building? According to “Historic Pittsburgh,” the Alcoa Building, located at 425 6th Avenue in downtown Pittsburgh, used aluminum wherever possible including aluminum furniture, aluminum piping and wiring, and aluminum air-conditioning ducts. Its thirty-story tower is lighter and more efficient than buildings of comparable size at the time of its construction.
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