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"The Spheres" in Seattle, Washington have been all the buzz lately! "The Spheres" were featured in the May 2019 Edition of Modern Steel Magazine as the buildings were awarded the AISC's IDEAS2 Presidential Award for Excellence in Fabrication!  Just this last week, our VP of Sales, Brad Lund, was able to attend the award presentation ceremony at "The Spheres" in Seattle and we were awarded a plaque to display in our office. See below for some AMAZING pictures!

Albina Co., Inc. was the steel bender/roller for the Curved Steel Bio-Sphere buildings in Seattle, WA. Albina bent 750,000# and 1,050 pieces rectangular tube steel bent the easy way and a portion bent off-axis. Almost 8 miles of welding work and grinding was avoided because of Albina’s ability to bend a portion of the project. Almost NO correction was needed during fabrication or erection as the bends fit to the fixtures within 1/32nd of an inch! Albina Co., Inc. also bent the handrails and spiral staircase for the interior of the buildings.

“A Monumental Journey” by Kelly James Marshall for the Greater Des Moines Public Art Foundation. The monument is featured in the August issue of Modern Steel “What’s Cool In Steel.” The monument celebrates the legacy of African American laywers who founded the the National Bar Association in 1925 and the monument symbolizes communication among diverse people and legal system, that while not perfect, strives to be balanced. Find more details about the project in the above article featured in Modern Steel.
Albina bent various materials for this project including:
3 x 40 ft: 5" X 5" X 5/16" ANGLE A36. Cut and bent to net 8 pcs (leg out). Bent down to a 68” inside radius.
1 x 20 ft: MC3 X 7.1# A36. Cut and bent to net 2 pcs (flanges in).
2 x 48 ft: TS 6" X 6" X .625" WALL A500 GR B. Cut and bent to net 4 pcs. Bent down to a 58” inside radius.
1 x 48 ft: TS 6" X 6" X .375" WALL A500 GR B. Cut and bent to net 2 pcs. Bent down to a 77” inside radius.

Kerry James Marshall (American, born 1955) A MONUMENTAL JOURNEY 2018 Manganese Ironspot brick, steel, granite approx. H. 30 ft, D. 19 ft

Commissioned by Greater Des Moines Public Art Foundation; Greater Des Moines Public Art Foundation Collection, 2018.1 Photos: Ben Easter

“The Spheres”, the recipient of the AISC 2019 IDEAS2 Presidential Award for Excellence in Fabrication grace the cover of the August Issue of Structure Magazine! The article focuses on the inspiration, the vision and the design of "The Spheres." Albina bent 750,000# and 1,050 pieces rectangular tube steel bent the easy way and a portion bent off-axis for this project. Almost 8 miles of welding work and grinding was avoided because of Albina’s ability to bend a portion of the project. Almost NO correction was needed during fabrication or erection as the bends fit to the fixtures within 1/32nd of an inch! Numerous Pacific Northwest businesses collaborated to make The Spheres possible.

Albina recently rolled 89 pieces of plate to various radii (with holes) to fit on concrete columns for the Stonestown Galleria mall in San Francisco.
Our customer recently shared the below photos of the rolled plates and had this to say, “I just wanted to share that every single plate has fit phenomenally with no issues. I appreciate your companies attention to quality control and detail. We look forward to continuing to work with Albina on future projects.”

Albina recently bent some Tube Steel 6" X 3" X .500" WALL A500 GR B as double 90° bends to a 17" inside radius the hard way. These are difficult, tight bends for this material and the bends turned out perfectly! The bends will be used as vestibule frames for a lobby entry.

Check out the August Issue of Modern Steel for “What’s Cool In Steel” Albina was the bender/roller on two of the featured projects including the Basher Pedestrian Bridge at the San Diego Zoo (pages 23-26) and a Des Moines sculpture titled “A Monumental Journey” by artist Kerry James Marshall (pages 30-31). We are working on securing some final install pictures of each of these projects! Stay tuned!

We recently worked with a customer on a unique project where they required curved Unistrut. We were able to successfully roll 1 5/8" X 1 5/8" GALVANIZED UNISTRUT the hard way to a 168” radius. A unique material for rolling! We figured out a way to maintain the shape while rolling and were able to bend 116 lengths! We received a comment from our customer that “no one at the jobsite had ever seen Unistrut curved before!"

We were in Seattle this weekend and were able to get some exterior pictures of The Madison Center. The Madison Center is a 530 foot tall, 36 story high rise office building in Seattle, Washington and is featured in the June edition of Modern Steel. Albina Co., Inc. was the bender/roller on this project and worked specifically on what is being called "The Great Room" which is a 45-foot tall steel framed entryway rotunda. Albina bent many material types for this project including tube steel 8" x 6" up to 12" x 12", 3" x 3" angle, W10 and W16 wide flange, 8" pipe and more. Check out the article for some more details on the architectural feat and some great pictures. We will be heading back up to Seattle next week to get some interior shots. Stay tuned!

The event is—"Curved Rails: From Field to Fabrication" August 9th & 10th in Erie, Colorado.

Living Design Studios will be the host shop. This shop is the home to Jonathan Falk who will be the 2020-2021 NOMMA President.

Terry Barrett, Pinpoint Solutions, and Matt Olseng, MDO Welding and Fabrication, will be the presenters. They will teach the basics of field measuring; transforming the measurements in to shop drawings and getting the project “off the paper” and into physical form. Matt will demonstrate fabrication of curved rails and share tips for success.

Albina was thrilled to be able to donate some curved steel parts to be used in the seminar. Visit the NOMMA Homepage to register!

Albina Co., Inc. bent at total of 24,000# of steel including 12 ¾" OD x .375" wall material and MC12 x 10.6# material for the new steel-framed UCHealth Longs Peak Hospital in Longmont, Colorado. The project is featured in the July issue of Modern Steel Construction and the article details many of the structural design challenges as well as the importance of early involvement of specialty fabricators.