Summit Metal Fabricators receives recognition for sculpture

Summit Metal Fabricators has received accolades from Engineering News-Record for its work on “CHORD,” a sculpture created in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the William Welles Bosworth-designed mathematics building on the campus of MIT, Cambridge, Mass. The awards, Best National Project 2017 and Best Regional Project 2016 (Specialty Contracting), reflect success in sculptural metal art works for Summit, which primarily serves the construction and manufacturing industries.

The four-story sculpture stretches from the tiled entryway to the skylight. It stands 56 ft. tall and weighs nearly a ton but fits into a 12- by 12-ft. stairwell. Designed by British artist Antony Gormley, known primarily for his cellular polyhedral sculptures that resemble abstract and geometric forms found in nature, the sculpture comprises 541 nodes and 905 elements welded together using the GTAW process. Summit’s fabrication and installation of the sculpture took a little over two months.

Workers at Summit used CNC-manufactured templates and specialized jigging equipment to manufacture every node and element before moving the 1,800-lb. sculpture to the campus in pieces for assembly. During construction, Summit used a custom-designed hoisting system that was fitted into the mathematics building stairwell, which allowed the sculpture to be assembled in six separate sections before being hoisted into position.