3Diligent offers its services for exterior cladding of new Seattle skyscraper

3Diligent, the digital manufacturing company that provides access to cutting edge rapid manufacturing services is providing its services to Walters & Wolf. As a matter of fact, the commercial cladding company has selected 3Diligent to 3D print a series of exterior curtain wall nodes for the new Rain Square Tower in Seattle.

The Rain Square Tower will be Seattle’s second tallest building after the 76-story Columbia Center once the construction project reaches completion in 2020. The new building will rise 58 stories high and is expected to cost $600 million. Its silhouette will be slightly sloping and this is in part thanks to the integration of 3D printing technologies. More precisely, each floor of the building will be set a step back from the preceding one. In order to achieve this, the cladding system will be very important. It will need to have different angles and will require complex geometries to fit together.

3Diligent is leveraging its metal 3D printing expertise to produce 140 unique exterior curtain wall nodes so that the exterior cladding comes together. The nodes will be manufactured from aluminium and will have varying dimensions. During the beginning stages of the collaboration between 3Diligent and Walters & Wolf two manufacturing methods were tested. One was investment casting and the other additive manufacturing. After prototypes were created, the companies agreed that the 3D printed nodes were superior in terms of dimensional accuracy and structural reliability. Walters & Wolf determined the best approach would be to create v-shaped nodes so as to bring together square cut parts of the curtain wall.