Build Your Business: Why a Custom Steel Building is the New Trend
A steel building can be used for a number of commercial enterprises, including a mini storage business.
Anyone who voraciously reads architecture magazines knows that the new trend in construction is to not only save space –tiny houses are, pardon the pun, huge right now– but to use materials that are not only inexpensive and durable, but environmentally friendly as well as pliable.
Steel hits all of those marks. Not only is steel being used for industrial purposes, it is becoming more and more popular in commercial, retail and even residential construction
That’s because steel is flexible in design. A steel building can be customized easily to meet the needs of business owners.
Here’s how:
From the inside on out
Once used solely for the structural integrity of a building, steel is now being used not only for the framework, but also on the exterior.
According to a Feb., 2016 article in Architecture Digest Magazine, famed architects such as Frank Gehry, Moshe Safdie, and the late Zaha Hadid have “challenged the idea of using steel merely to construct a building’s skeleton and have instead created innovative and surprising fluid structures that allow the material to take center stage.”
The article sites examples of where steel has been used in innovative ways on the both the exterior and interior of buildings such as at Oxford University, a commercial space in Tokyo, a performing arts centre in Kansas City, and even for a series of flood gates on the Thames River in London, U.K.
The possibilities are endless
While most business owners are looking for a cost-saving and simplistic design, commercial steel buildings can still have an appealing aesthetic or look. They can be customized to suit any commercial application.
Pre-painted metal, which is a coating applied specifically to steel and can come in the form of organic compounds, can be applied to the exterior of the building to not only provide a colourful look, but for protective purposes.
Even a pre-engineered steel building can be embellished with a variety of applications and decorative elements such as structural columns, trim, wainscoting, roofing, etc.
Some of these finishing materials include:
- Natural decorative stone
- Wood siding panels
- Stucco
- Tile
Save time and money in the design process
Although architects were mentioned earlier in this article, they are not necessarily needed when designing steel buildings. Suppliers of pre-engineered buildings often use a comprehensive built-in design plan that starts with the drafting stage to engineering to manufacturing to installation, so business owners can save from having costly architectural plans drawn up.
All the business owner has to do is make sure zoning, permit applications and budgetary requirements are met, and let the builders do the rest.
For more information on design elements that can be done with steel, read our blog Perfect Combo: A Pre-Engineered Steel Building with Steel Wall Panels.
Metal Structure Concepts is a BC-based company that has been designing and building structural and pre-engineered steel buildings for commercial and industrial purposes since 2002. Our designers, managers, and ground crews work together to turn your chosen building design into a reality.