Have you ever wondered where those exposed steel beams come from? Follow along with the whole process of the build from paper plans to steel parts to installing structural elements! And it turns out that the fabricators who made them up for the WaterFire Arts Center are just down the street at Rhode Island Welding! They prepared the vertical I beams that will be supporting the new WaterFire offices by tapping holed to receive custom brackets. Those special brackets that tie the beams into the existing structural steel were cut on an automated table, and then hand welded together and finally welded to the building.
The whole process was very fast, with all of the steel beams hung in one day! Final welding into position is still taking place, and the channels which will hold the floor concrete have yet to be placed.
Watching these beams go up really tells us how far we have come in the progress of the building!
About the author
I've worked at WaterFire Providence since 2003. For the first 9 years of my career, I worked in the Production Shop learning all of the details that go into the physical production of the event. In 2012 transitioned to the role of managing WaterFire's social media and web presence. I now head up WaterFire Providence's digital projects including, web, social, databases, and our physical IT infrastructure.
I like how around the minute mark in your video you showed how they took a torch to the steel to help fabricate it into the steel beam that they wanted. It seems like a pretty intense project that is so helpful to putting up our buildings and probably making anything with steel or metal. I wonder where a fabricator near me is.