RIVERCITY INDUSTRIES

River City Industries located in San Antonio, Texas is a full service laser cutting and waterject cutting shop. Their specialty is precision fabrication and finished component parts and have design and engineering capabilities in house. RCi has employed their Mazak HyperGear and Calypso CNC Waterjet on the several projects for Architecturebureau and UTSA, including the Embrace project.

CROW CORPORATION

CROW Corp in Tomball, Texas runs a precision shop that includes laser cutting up to wire EDM cutting processes.  METALAB has been working with them on custom fabricated building components including large span structures down to industrial design projects.

CAMPO SHEET METAL WORKS

Campo specializes in water jet and plasma cutting of heavy gauge sheet metals and custom fabrication.  METALAB has worked with them on several projects including a large site construction in the form of wind tower laid into the ground and most recently large civic art projects.  Their ability to work with designers to optimize project coupled with the space to “dry fit” large assemblies prior to site installation has made them a facilitator of work at impressive scales.

AMBOX Limited, Houston

AMBOX Limited is a sheet metal job shop specializing in laser cutting and various forming techniques that METALAB has used for several projects including the Ceiling Cloud, Photobooth and most recently the components for the New Harmony Grotto.

Andrew Vrana, AIA
Metalab

Visiting Assistant Professor
University of Houston
College of Architecture

Andrew is an Architect who has structured his practice around design enhanced by advanced computation and parametric digital design. He has worked in the office of Renzo Piano Building Workshop and now is applying his interests and experiences professionally with Metalab and in academia as a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Houston Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture.  Metalab is an innovative design office in Houston that integrates expertise in digital media and fabrication with architecture, product development and civic artworks, from concepts through construction.  As a graduate of Columbia University with a Master of Architecture in 1998 he was awarded the Charles McKim Prize for design excellence and the Saul Kaplan Traveling Fellowship.

Kevin Patrick McClellan
Architecturebureau

Lecturer II
University of Texas San Antonio
College of Architecture

Kevin is a designer, artist and founder of Architecturebureau a design research office  exploring complex systems and their material effects on form. After receiving his Masters in Architecture and Urbanism in the DRL from the Architectural Association School of Architecture with a Project Distinction in 2005, he subsequently worked in New York for Kevin Kennon and in London with Zaha Hadid Architects. There he led the development of two highly publicized temporary installations, one for the Serpentine Gallery titled Lilas and the second for Swarovski Crystal Palace exhibited in the 2008 Milan Furniture Fair. He teaches design studio at the University of Texas at San Antonio.

Brad Bell
Brad Bell Studio

Assistant Professor
University of Texas at Arlington
School of Architecture

Brad is an Assistant Professor at the University of Texas Arlington where he researches and teaches on the integration of digital fabrication technologies into the architectural design process. He has lectured, taught, and written on the uses of such technologies for the past 10 years and has been an invited critic at schools of architecture throughout the United States. In addition to his research and teaching responsibilities at UTA, hel is the Assistant Director of the Finland Summer Architecture Institute, conducted each summer at the Helsinki University of Technology. As principal of brad bell studio, he has completed projects in Colorado, Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma. His practice focuses on adapting contextual and regional construction methodologies with new digital fabrication technologies.