Olume Residential Building

Project: Olume Residential Building
Location/Country: San Francisco, CA, USA
Architects: Arquitectonica International Corp., Los Angeles, CA | USA
Fabricator: Keith Panel Systems Co. Ltd., North Vancouver, BC | Canada
Construction: Pacific Erectors Inc., Rocklin, CA | USA
Year of Construction: 2016
Material: ALUCOBOND® PLUS
Colour Surface: 5 custom colors: Cajun Clay, Burnt Russet, Baked Clay, Pumice Stone, Baked Terracotta
Photos: © Lunghi Media Group

The 12-story 138,512-square- foot Olume multifamily residential community opened in March 2016 with owner Monogram Residential Trust, Inc., of Plano, Texas, offering 121 luxury rental units – including studio, one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments – as well as two levels of subterranean parking.

Arquitectonica was brought in to re-design the façade of the building, resulting in an L-shaped building that appears as an abstract series of colored metal cubes created from ALUCOBOND® PLUS ACM and installed at five variable depths – ranging from minus-8 inches to plus-8 inches – with the building’s glazing set back 2 inches to 8 inches from the metal panels.

“From a thematic standpoint, we wanted to introduce dynamism through depth,” said Cheng. “We wanted to reflect diversity in the neighborhood and in residential buildings.”

The varying façade depths “were accentuated with the color palette,” according to Cheng, who said the architects wanted to incorporate red in the building as one of San Francisco’s more prominent colors associated with both the city’s Golden Gate Bridge and its NFL 49ers professional football team.

“We wanted to take the idea of redness but turn it more toward earth tones so there wasn’t an immediate brightness to the building all around,” said Cheng, who described the custom colors of the ALUCOBOND® PLUS panels installed onsite as “spot on.”

A total of 40,700 square feet of 4mm ALUCOBOND® PLUS ACM was installed on the Olume building in five custom colors, including: 19,200 square feet of Cajun Clay, 5,500 square feet of Burnt Russet, 3,400 square feet of Baked Clay, 6,200 square feet of Pumice Stone and 6,400 square feet of Baked Terracotta.

3A Composites USA worked closely with the architects and fabricator Keith Panel Systems Co. Ltd. (KPS), of North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, to match the custom colors in the 1,400 ALUCOBOND® PLUS panels fabricated by KPS for the façade.

“The varying depths and multiple colors of this façade made this project extremely complex,” said Paul Dalzell, operations manager, Keith Panels Systems. “We used 3-D modeling to determine the shape and appropriate color of returns. The part count on this project was enormous. This was a very labor intensive job. … We created a detailed set of shop drawings that not only showed the location of each color but how the parts and pieces fit together.”

“KPS gave us an extensive set of shop drawings that basically served as an erector set,” said Jeff Young, project manager, Pacific Erectors. “Our biggest challenge was installing all of the colors. We were able to assist the design team in determining where colors should transition in the articulation. … This color scheme was a complete departure from the original façade design. It really looks unique. It’s a great-looking building.”

The architects said they specified ALUCOBOND® PLUS for the Olume residential building because they knew it could achieve their unique multi-layered facade design.

“ALUCOBOND is certainly the standard – if not the gold standard – of aluminum composite material,” said Cheng. “Beyond its name recognition, it was recommended in partnership with our contractors. ALUCOBOND was selected for its product characteristics of flatness and light weight.”

Added Keilson: “With the sense of relief we created – installing the metal panels from minus-8 inches to plus-8 inches – we knew ALUCOBOND wouldn’t create a sense of warp.”

Read the full case study here to learn how ALUCOBOND® PLUS constributed to the LEED Silver certification.