Designed by Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects

Landscape architecture by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates

Back in 2014 I had the opportunity to serve as the senior project manager for the ornamental metal exterior of 520 West 28th Street, by Zaha Hadid.

The façade wasn’t made from standard panels. It consisted of 888 individually fabricated stainless steel elements, each receiving a custom blackening process followed by hand-finished marbling, meaning every single piece was unique.
On paper, it sounds straightforward. /s
In reality, it involved years of design development, engineering, fabrication, mockups, finishing, logistics, installation sequencing, and solving countless problems that almost nobody outside the project team ever gets to see.

I have hundreds of photos documenting the process—from raw fabrication and finish samples to field installation—and I’d be happy to walk through what actually went into making it happen.

Would anyone here be interested in a detailed behind-the-scenes series covering:
how the system was designed,
how the finish was developed,
how 888 unique pieces were tracked and fabricated,
the installation challenges, and
what went wrong (and how we fixed it)?

If there’s enough interest, I’ll start posting the full story. If you like this kind of specific topic, join me in my growing new subreddit for r/ArchitecturalMetal

EDIT: I did not expect this level of interest!. I am really excited to share this with you all over the ensuing days and weeks! please keep giving me your specific requests on what you would like to know about !

Designed by Louis kahn in La Jolla, California
This masterpiece blends brutalist architecture with minimalist design.

Helsinki Central Railway Station (Helsingin päärautatieasema) is the main transport hub of Finland. Located at Kaivokatu 1 in the heart of the city, it serves roughly 200,000 to 240,000 people daily. Designed by Eliel Saarinen and opened in 1919, the landmark is famous for its Art Nouveau style, red granite exterior, 48-meter clock tower, and the iconic "Lantern Bearer" statues.

Not particularly interesting but honestly don't hate it. The gold is still a little gaudy but not as excessive as other things the president built. I would hope that interesting reliefs would go in those slots like on other monument arches like the Arc de Triumph

Designed by Will Alsop for OCAD University, this deconstructivist building looks like a pixelated box hovering in the air.

The Legs: The entire structure is supported 26 meters (85 ft) above the ground by 12 thin, brightly colored steel columns. They look exactly like giant colored pencils stabbed into the pavement.

The Concept: Instead of demolishing the historic campus underneath, the architect simply built above it to save space in downtown Toronto.

The Core: Access to the floating box is through that massive, bright red vertical escape stairs/elevator shaft.

Location: Northern Evia, Greece. 

Architect: Mehrdad Iravanian

Pretty cool to see this thing in person