An extremely important consideration when designing a new house is discovering the materials for your exterior. Glass is a certainty for windows, but solid areas can be clad in brick, concrete, stone, metal, wood or even a combination of these and other materials.
This ideabook requires a peek at some homes that are covered in wood or predominantly feature wood on the exterior. The focus is on the design impact of the substance and its articulation on the facade, rather than on its technical characteristics.
Frank / Architects
This little house in the redwood forest of Sea Ranch in California is a great example of a construction that integrates itself through the utilization of wood over the entire exterior. Little windows predominate on the upper exterior, but a large window off the living room attracts the forest inside.
Frank / Architects
Another view of the house in the forest accentuates the integration which comes not only with covering the construction in wood but also from articulating it vertically, parallel to the redwood tree trunks.
Frank / Architects
Inside the same house, more vertical wood planks, combined with hardwood flooring, ceilings and construction, further the integration and create the spaces hot and extremely inviting.
chadbourne + doss architects
Wood is also a great material to use selectively. It can be a suitable contrast with other exterior materials, especially when the colours are dark and light. This wood cladding is shaped to frame the huge window and dark surface below.
chadbourne + doss architects
Another look at the same house makes it clear this framing is three-dimensional. Apart from raw cedar, cement and steel panels are used for the exterior. The three materials seem to interlock, accentuating the home’s quantity and imparting some verticality into it, especially with the wood.
christopher jeffrey architects pllc
The top two floors of the house in New Jersey have vertical boards of a grayed wood involving various-size windows in placements that are irregular. The big window on the floor wraps the corner towards a cantilevered balcony, a bit that brings the most attention.
christopher jeffrey architects pllc
A nearer view of the wood skin demonstrates how the dimensions of the bits is an important factor in the way the construction appears.
This exterior uses horizontal wood planks, and it is clear why. The long and low construction exudes the landscape, accentuated by the flat lines of the ground and roof, and from the orientation of the wood.
From the other side of the house, the flat pattern of the wood also strengthens the management of the home’s volume. But the articulation of the various forests — a mixture of browns and grays — lets the house also integrate itself with the landscape.
Randy Bens, Architect AIBC
Given its lightweight nature, wood can also be used for screens that filter daylight as it enters inside spaces. Wood Cabinets add interesting detail layered over glass and other materials. The angled display hung in front of the building is particularly striking.
Randy Bens, Architect AIBC
Note the difference in impacts between daylight (this photo) and following the sun goes down (previous photograph ). During the daytime the display looks almost solid from the exterior, but in the day the glow from inside is filtered, the opposite of if the sun is out.
Randy Bens, Architect AIBC
This display and its construction are closely detailed: Painted white slats are mounted to paired vertical supports which are bracketed into the roof above and horizontal framing below.
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