According to a recent article by Dezeen Magazine, the renovation of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), which was made with FRP, is almost done. The building is scheduled to re-open on May 14, 2016.
Kreysler & Associates designed the eastern façade of the building’s 700 “rain screen” FRP panels. The panels cover and help waterproof the 10-story building. When fastened to the aluminum frame, the panels create a rippling horizontal texture that looks like the waters of the San Francisco Bay. According to Bill Kreysler, president of Kreysler & Associates Inc., the SFMOMA expansion is the largest use of FRP cladding on a multistory building in North America.
The panels are made from recyclable expanded polystyrene (EPS) foam molds that are milled by a CNC hotwire machine for rough shape and by a five-axis CNC router to create the final double-curved surface. No two panels are alike: most are 5½ feet wide with lengths varying from 6 to 30 feet. The skin thickness is only 3/16th of an inch: “Every panel had to be designed and engineered individually to make sure it fit properly onto the aluminum frame behind it,” Kreysler said to Composites Manufacturing last year.
