Photo: Justin Cesler, Courtesy of Mediaworks and Extech
At the entrance to Morongo Casino, Resort and Spa, landscape architect Lifescapes International Inc. designed wind-driven, metal flapper-panel walls lining a driveway to the main entrance and multiple freestanding columns of LED screens displaying changing visual patterns. The flapper walls and illuminated columns are part of a renovation and expansion of the casino and resort.
MediaWorks, a division of Omnicore LLC, installed Exterior Technologies Inc.’s (EXTECH) KINETICWALL facade system with aluminum flappers. David Coronado, senior vice president of business operations at MediaWorks, says the decorative elements were accentuated with solid metal caps that outline the walls’ rolling shape, and the supported ribbons of colorful metal that ascend and intertwine above the walls like sculptures in flight.
The flappers were mounted on horizontal rungs and then assembled into 40 sections for shipping and installation. Each section is 55 inches wide and varies from 60 to 140 inches high. Within the wall’s structural framework, more than 4,500 clear anodized, 6-inch by 6-inch aluminum flappers are horizontally suspended on a pin-mount system.
A pin-mount suspension system makes the flappers appear to float in front of support rungs and side rails as a veil. Finished in black anodize, the framework fades into the background to emphasize the dynamic flappers and their movement.
Jim Leslie, general manager at EXTECH, says, “Pin-mount has become our default suspension system because it allows for a continuous unbroken surface of flappers that minimizes the supporting structure, it accommodates a 90-degree range of motion, and it provides a more economical price point than rod-mount suspensions.”
