EcoSteel - Iconic Steel Building Systems - Commercial Construction California
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Sustainability-minded Cafe ZunZun has brought its new Loring S7 Nighthawk roaster online and will soon be greeting guests inside a conscientiously designed building in Cypress, Texas, just outside Houston.
The result of a collaboration with design and construction firm Ecosteel, the shape of the building is intended to recall the zunzuncito — commonly referred to as the “bee hummingbird” — which is the smallest species of bird on earth, found only in Cuba.
EcoSteel’s Multifamily Prefab was featured in “A Polygonal Refuge Takes Root in the Hills of Los Angeles” by By Stephen Zacks –
Up above the eastern edge of Silver Lake Reservoir, a hexagonal two-family dwelling balances atop a series of staircase landings, stretching out over the hillside on cantilevered balconies. Designed by Los Angeles architect Tom Marble in a creative fermentation with owner and friend Tim Tattu, the Tattuplex poses at a 12-degree angle to the lot, with two polygonal volumes forming a stack, punctuated by a triangular wraparound terrace.
For Tim, who is now immersed in the COVID-19 public health crisis as a hospice nurse and confronted with shortages in protective equipment, it’s particularly important to have a quiet place to retreat. “I always wanted home to be a refuge and a place for healing and renewal, and to have a place that energetically supports everyone who enters the spaces.”
“By the time he returned to Los Angeles in 2009, the recession was in full swing, and he managed to purchase a prominent hillside lot vacant since the 1980s for $190,000—almost half its previous value. Early on, he had committed to buying structural materials from EcoSteel, which manufactures prefabricated panels that allow for quick and efficient construction. Except the only previous applications had been orthogonal warehouses.”
“I did not want a box,” Tim says. “I wanted to look at the view from many angles. I’m not a huge fan of houses where you go straight out and look at the view straight on—that makes the view too overwhelming. I like a big view, don’t get me wrong, but I like to have different angles on the view, because it kind of shifts your perception.”
Over dinners, Tim, Marble, and the artist Pae White—Marble’s wife and a friend of Tim’s from art school—discussed the concept and iterated the design. With Silver Lake’s rich history of midcentury modern houses, they wanted the home to equally reflect the influences of raw steel in the work of Richard Neutra, Rudolph Schindler, and John Lautner, whose Silvertop residence is visible on the opposite hill above reservoir. “In that neighborhood there are a few architects who worked earlier in the 20th century,” Marble says. “I felt like it was an opportunity to do a ‘Silver Lake’ type of building in Silver Lake.”
An office built into the side of the bedroom uses the same Douglas fir wood and forms the center of the second hexagon. Another glass sliding door from the bedroom passes through to the living room balcony. A dedicated master bathroom forms another spur of the wheel, with a soaking tub, a custom vanity topped in travertine, and a shower sealed with antique burnt red tiles. Another sliding door passes to a gravel-covered garden. A walk-in closet with a window and space for meditation, and the entryway complete the hexagon.
Often, when developing and perfecting a new technology, you must have other experimenters, other risk-takers, buy into your vision. Such was the case with EcoSteel, which works with iconoclastic architects whose clients are clearly after sustainability as well as beauty.
Based in Laguna Niguel, California, EcoSteel’s building system was used in a six-level, 9,570-square-foot home in the Russian Hill neighborhood of San Francisco that was listed last autumn for $25 million. Indeed, EcoSteel found other architects and designers that understood the vision of making prefab structural steel frames and insulated roof and wall panels both gorgeous and functional.
Now Phase II of the experimentation is coming to fruition. EcoSteel is focusing on another goal: to create affordable housing in regions where it is rare, like California.
Let’s first review the system and its benefits. EcoSteel’s construction process begins with 3D engineering/modeling and shop details. It then produces a prefabricated kit of parts that is assembled on the building site. Architects and their clients benefit financially by using prefab technology and readily available materials and labor.
“Reflecting a growing interest in the use of metal is EcoSteel, a Southern California based supplier of prefabricated, pre-insulated building materials, which opened an office in Santa Rosa in 2017 and is working in partnership with E West Construction on several North Bay projects. Joss Hudson, founder of EcoSteel, explains that one of the key advantages is the steel insulated panel system the company uses for roofs and walls. The concept comes from Reprint from the commercial refrigeration industry, and he reports it’s the most energy-efficient building insulator on the market. “If you want to build a commercial refrigerating building for frozen foods, you’ll use this technology,” he says. It’s an important consideration because the California Public Utilities Commission is aiming for all new residential construction to be Zero Net Energy by 2020, with actual energy consumed less or equal to the on-site renewable energy a building generates. The short-term focus is the building envelope because better methods of insulation and framing are an effective way to reduce consumption and help meet the standards. EcoSteel’s panels come pre-finished from the manufacturer, and the insulated envelope is on the outside of the building, rather than its more common place between the interior and exterior walls. “It’s the concept of ‘outsulation,’ not insulation,” says Hudson.”