Wood Slats in Design: Repetition, Scale and Light
Wood Screens Create Privacy, Delicacy, and Sometimes a Golden Glow
Wood slats are a popular device in contemporary architecture. Typically used as walls, the parallel and spaced pieces of wood allow light and air to often pass through. Yet combined with other adjacent materials the slats can also act as enclosures.
Their appeal is related to these effects as well as the repetition that gives these walls a small, not to mention delicate, scale. The following examples give two glimpses of each use of wood slats — far away and up close — illuminating some of the appeal of these surfaces.
Their appeal is related to these effects as well as the repetition that gives these walls a small, not to mention delicate, scale. The following examples give two glimpses of each use of wood slats — far away and up close — illuminating some of the appeal of these surfaces.
This house in San Diego, Calif. incorporates wood slats into the garage volume. The spacing of the horizontal wood pieces is evident in the glowing garage doors (combined with a translucent plastic or glass, no doubt) and the guardrail that extends to the right and the second-floor French doors. A closer look ...
... reveals that the wood slats also function as guardrails for a large terrace over the garage. Here they are combined with metal railings to create an opening over the entrance. We can also see the extension of the wood slats through the glass doors in the distance.
This house in Carmel, Calif. is fronted by a one-story wall of wood slats that changes from opaque to porous depending on what is happening behind it. A cut in the wall allows access to the house via a wooden walkway. A closer look ...
... shows the bathroom behind one of the opaque sections of the wall, adjacent to an outdoor deck. The wood slats next to the deck filter sun and views, adding some privacy while bringing in daylight.
Like the former example, this house designed by Anne Fougeron is fronted by a wall of wood slats. For this urban house, the slats are a continuation of the wood wall below, yet translucent instead of solid. A large picture window stands out from the two types of wood treatment ...
... as if the projecting window cuts through the wood slats. This recalls the opening cut into the wall of the previous example. Here we can get close to the slats, seeing the rectangular shape of each piece of wood and the vertical supports. The wood slats give some privacy to the shallow outdoor space behind them.
Using wood slats without a secondary wall is limited to fences, guardrails, and other applications where the space behind is open to the elements. This shed is a rare example of a residential enclosure that does not require an air and water barrier. A roof with translucent plastic sheds water from the interior ...
... which is used to store kayaks, surfboards and sails. Wood columns support the roof and wood slat walls, and metal bars cantilevering from them support the gear. The architects used wood slats to give some protection to the open-air shed, but also to minimize the size of members needed for construction, since transport down a steep slope was an issue.
This striking house in Austin, Texas is composed in a tripartite section: stone at the base, wood in the middle, and glass on the top. The vertical wood slats help make the transition between the solid below and transparent above. Semi-open shutters and parapets lighten the appearance and soften the top edge.
In the same home shown in the previous photo, the extension of the wood slats past the small roof of the second floor allows the dramatic views of the surroundings to not be totally obscured. They act like a veil and also combine with the cantilevered roof to frame the horizon.
This last example shows how a wood-slat wall can be integrated with more traditional wood shingles. The appearance is definitely more contemporary, but it is not at odds with the adjacent elevations. The finer scale of the slats is combined with small square openings ...
... and a grid of more windows behind the slats (barely perceptible here) that allows light to filter through the slats. Here the slats are a second, outer wall that helps this glass volume relate to the traditional house. They also enable different appearances outside (where they look like random pixels) ...
... and inside (where they appear in a grid of squares). Note the slats visible through three of the small windows in the distance.
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