Lightweight Copper Cladding

About 35,000 square feet of Alpolic copper composite material graces the headquarters of the Ceridian Corporation in Bloomington, Minnesota. Since the building was completed in 2000, it has developed a "fabulous patina."

Copper composite material, rigid thermoplastic sheets clad on both sides with copper sheeting, is finding growing application for both building exteriors and interiors. Structures can now be clad with appealing copper, but with much less weight. The 4-mmthick composites weigh 2.08 pounds per square foot, or only 35% as much as solid copper of that thickness.

Copper Sales Inc., Anoka, Minnesota, a fabricator and processor of Two Sided Copper (TSC) brand copper composite, and Reynobond, Eastman, Georgia, a division of Alcoa, introduced TSC about five years ago. It's now also available from Mitsubishi Chemical America, Inc., Chesapeake, Virginia, under the trade name of Alpolic.

Architect Kara Hill chose Alpolic for the headquarters of the Ceridian Corporation, Bloomington, Minnesota (see photo). Hill headed the project's design team, all part of the Minneapolis-based firm of Hammel, Green & Abrahamson, Inc. (HGA). She notes that the 35,000 square feet of cladding has developed a "fabulous patina" since the six-story building was completed in 2000. (Alpolic now offers a prepatinated product.). The client is very pleased with the appearance of the building, according to the architect.

Hill likes copper. She has also specified copper shingles for the exterior of a museum she is designing for Rochester, Minnesota. The same shingles are specified inside the museum for highlights.

Copper Lauded

Copper composite panels are used both on the exterior and interior of the Potawatomi Bingo Casino. Here they face the supports for the glass panels in the smoking "torch" at the entrance, a reference to the fact that this tribe is known as "the people of the fire".

Copper composite material has also been used extensively both outside and inside in the bingo casino in Milwaukee operated by the Potawatomi native Americans (see photo). "Everyone loves the result," says Barry Thalden, CEO, St. Louis-based Thalden.Boyd.Emery Architects, the firm that designed the interior. The exterior architects were the Zimmerman Architectural Studios, Milwaukee. According to a spokesman for Copper Sales, other architects and designers have specified the composite for interior uses including lobby walls, soffits, column facings and interior walls of elevator cabs.

The manufacturers claim their composites can be cut, routed, sawed, filed, drilled, screwed, welded and curved to a six-inch radius to form complex shapes. It is available in standard widths up to 48 inches and standard lengths to 24 feet. The cladding is attached with stainless-steel clips to the underlying facade. Reynobond obtains the C11000 sheeting from Copper & Brass Sales, Detroit.

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Also in this Issue:

• It Takes a Lot of Brass to Make Good Music
• Lightweight Copper Cladding
• Copper Alloys Go Golfing with the Pros
• Copper Garage Doors Add Style
• "W" Energized By The Sun
• Heat Transfer Boosted By Copper
• 100 Years Of Copper Rivets
• Copper Enhances Indoor Waterfalls

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