By Steven Soderberg, Lorin Industries, Inc.
The 100 Above The Park tower in St. Louis, featuring Lorin anodized aluminum panels, has been awarded the 2nd best building of the year in the Single Skin Panels design category. The Metal Construction Association presented this award to Lorin Industries on October 12, 2022 at METALCON in Indianapolis, IN.
The design of the tower called for a metallic finish comparable to the way that the stainless steel surface of the St. Louis Arch takes on the color of the sky as weather changes and as the sun moves across the sky from dawn to dusk.
Panels fabricated from anodized aluminum from Lorin Industries, with Lorin ClearMatt® finish, Architectural Class I, were selected for the corrugated rainscreen panels and flat trim panels on the façade as well as for fabricated ‘blades’ over the garage area of the tower. Anodizing aluminum builds a crystalline structure that reflects and refracts light in a way that creates a three-dimensional metallic look you just can’t get from paint—precisely the look sought by the architect.
Unlike painted metal, anodized aluminum is not flat, static, or one dimensional. Depending on the angle from which it is viewed, it can achieve ever changing looks due to variables such as the amount of light, time of day, or even the time of year.
Additionally, the architect and owner wanted to achieve a striking visual appearance that would age well and retain its exceptional aesthetic qualities for decades to come with minimal maintenance. Anodized aluminum is much more durable than coated materials and will never chip, flake, or peel and will never rust, patina, or weather. Lorin Industries delivers an exceptionally high quality and long lasting anodized finish using a special process where coiled raw aluminum is unwound and pulled through a series of tanks that clean, anodize, color, seal, and finally rewound into the coil—all in one continuous movement. Because every square inch of the material in coil form spends the same amount of time in each part of the process, consistency of color and texture is ensured