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Exterior Materials: Texture Talk
Consider the visual and tactile feel of your house's cladding along with its practical uses for maximum exterior appeal
Houzz Contributor. I am an architect and writer living in New York City. I have Bachelor of Architecture and Master in Urban Planning degrees, and over ten years experience in architectural practice, split between Chicago and NYC. Currently I'm focused on writing and online pursuits. My daily blog can be found at http://archidose.blogspot.com
Houzz Contributor. I am an architect and writer living in New York City.... More »
While my ideabooks tend to look at the big picture, the overall form of a house or sometimes particular elements that go into a design, every now and then I like to zoom in and focus on materials. Here is another feature with close-ups of materials, some of them fairly typical but most of them anything but. Exterior applications are the focus of this ideabook, but a future one will take a step indoors.
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| Astute and regular readers probably know I'm a big fan of rust. Cor-Ten steel can be found in plates but also corrugated pieces, like on this residence in Dallas. I'll admit the appearance and texture is not for everybody, but the juxtaposition with the cactus in this photo — quite appropriate, actually — makes the rust pretty appealing. |
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| More rust. This project by WA Design uses thin sheets of weathering steel punctuated by exposed fasteners. When using any metal skin, it's important to think about how it is fastened — exposed, concealed, matching, contrasting, gridded, irregular and so on. The grid of screws here is obviously intentional. |
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Steel can also take other finishes, such as gray-blue appearance. The natural variation within the small panels is a nice touch, as are the horizontal wood dividers.
| Here is a utilitarian building in Sonoma, California, that is covered in vertical metal siding. A mesh grid located a few feet in front of the metal surface is an armature for climbing plants, softening the whole building. |
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Gray cement board panels cover part of this house in New York's Catskill Mountains designed by Resolution: 4 Architecture. The grid of fasteners breaks down the scale of the panels. The gray-blue finish is a nice contrast with the wood.
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| Another Res: 4 project uses cedar siding, a more typical way of cladding a house than cement panels. Regardless, the variation found in just this small area at the bottom corner of a window is striking; This is the sort of natural variation that fiber cement can't accomplish. |
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| We can see a similar sort of variation in the wood siding here, the same project as the corrugated rust that starts the ideabook. In a sense the two materials complement each other: They are both horizontal and have their own kind of natural variation. |
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| The wood version of weathering steel (the oxidization of steel to provide a protective barrier) is the Japanese tradition of shou-sugi-ban. Burning cedar or some other wood gives it a charcoal barrier that is rot and fire resistant ... and very distinctive looking. |
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Last is the wonderful scaly exterior of the aptly named Concrete Studio by architect Mell Lawrence. The cast-concrete building is like a monolithic mass that is broken down in scale through the texture; the shadows accentuate it here. The holes left behind by the formwork also give the walls a distinctive appearance.
More:
Building Materials Ready for Their Close-Ups
Exterior Materials Mix It Up
More:
Building Materials Ready for Their Close-Ups
Exterior Materials Mix It Up
Comments
Fine Art & Portraits by Laurel Thanks John. I love rust, and the burned wood is gorgeous.
14 months ago · Like
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Design Diva LLC The metal grate just gave me an idea for the front & sides of my house. Thanks!
13 months ago · Like
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mrsben Love the burned wood!
13 months ago · Like
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Ideabook published on April 9, 2012.
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