Eastern white cedar, aka arborvitae--the tree of life, locally harvested, sawn and milled. The reverse board-and-batten system provides a built-in rain screen gap. The timber frame elements are eastern hemlock, also a local material. Both have some rot resistance and with good detailing should last a long, long time. This project will be in The Pretty Good House Book, due out in May--it's a Pretty Good Garage!
Thanks all! It was a fun project. There are no horizontal battens, just vertical cedar strips over a WRB and the face boards are nailed to that. We used B.Obdyke's Hydrogap under the lower, horizontal boards. Unconditioned storage buildings are much more forgiving than heated, moisture-laden houses in cold climates like mine (zone 6). We did use a ripped strip of Coravent to allow intake air and drainage at the upper section--you can just make out a 1/4" black strip. Again, not what I would do for a house but it worked fine here. The builder actually changed my detail, which would not have been as elegant.
Beautiful! Do the batten sizes alternate in a regular or random pattern? I love the drip course and natural grass too.
Oct 4, 21 11:31 am ·
·
proto
it's a regular pattern, but it seems to have enough differential to give it some presence
we asked the sider to put a 1/16" gap at the t&g to keep a hairline there. it shows in true elevation that the t&g are 1x4 + 1x6 btwn battens. And battens alternate 1x2 & 2x2.
Haha, thanks Jose! I have done out-of-state consulting but I'm not well versed in warm climates and my schedule is ridiculous so I'm not taking on any new work. Planning a re-invention for mid-2022, having fun thinking about what it will look like.
Proto, that project was built by this company: https://www.benjamin-co.com/. It was our first project together but it got them through the worst of the pandemic and they were a pleasure to work with. Gotta love a builder who only proposes ideas that will make everything better, not just easier for them.
Alaskan cedar shingles and decking, standing seam copper roof, cement stucco chimney. If you look closely there is a hidden door to a storage shed. The copper roof leaves a green patina on the chimney, unexpectedly gorgeous.
Beautiful. Reminds me a bit of Edward Larrabee Barnes' work at Haystack School here in Maine. One of many reasons I prefer natural materials is the character they develop over time. Aged plastic just doesn't have the same effect.
Asphalt roofing used over wood frame on a concrete base. Our first project in Tokyo. Still one of the best projects we have done. The garden space has only become better and the clients remain very good friends.
two of my children a couple of years after moving in. It has become wilder and more joyful since then.
we went to see the office of atelier bow-wow to work out if there were any issues with using this as a finish and came up with different corner details and added flashing on the top because the finish tends to collect dirt stains at the seams. We eliminated many of those but not all.
Oct 5, 21 9:03 am ·
·
archanonymous
Awesome! Just saw this new(ish) fluid applied membrane while talking with one of our reps, really want to use it in a project like this. https://chasecorp.com/cimindustries/cim-1000/
Oct 5, 21 11:08 am ·
·
Wood Guy
Very cool. Did you paint the asphalt or is it available in that color there? I love creative use of tight spaces, and bringing a bit of nature into the city.
the asphalt is painted - with a plasticised waterproofing layer as i recall. There were only a few colors available and we went with this one, I think correctly. The hardest part of construction was to place the asphalt in the very tight spaces between properties. 3 men held the rolls it in place vertically, slowly unrolling it and keeping it level. They did a very good job of it, but I admit it is a much easier job to lay horizontally. We also needed to add a layer of fireproofing beneath the asphalt walls to meet fire-rating requirements, which increased cost more than we thought it would. So the cheap finish ended up being more expensive than we thought. The thing is, because of fire regulations in tokyo the only other options are stucco and cement panels of some kind. In the end I think this was the right material, but we did have to do some research to get it to work...
Realized that I don't actually have any built projects with cladding. They are all either interior architecture, under construction, curtain wall projects, or use the structure as the cladding like that precast school I did. Maybe next time. :(
Curtain walls are relatively foreign to me, aside from a couple of super modern homes where we used curtain wall systems. What would you say is the biggest difference between curtain wall and conventional construction?
Oct 5, 21 11:19 am ·
·
archanonymous
Probably the underlying building structure. It totally changes how you think about and use the exterior wall. Hard to necessarily map onto smaller or residential scale projects.
I did so much CW work early in my career that I never even explored how much was possible in Type IIB, III, IV, and V construction from an area/ code/ separation/ program/ planning perspective. It was just assumed that you would use Type I or IIA so that you had composite or concrete slabs structured with steel or concrete members and you would hang the entire wall and any other cladding off of it.
I'm in a similar situation, and it's been sort of nagging at me the past year. I feel like I have a huge knowledge gap when it comes to exterior systems & cladding materials, and I feel like it's holding me back from advancing as a project architect. Hoping to break out soon and get into some big ol' wall details.
Changing up the scale a little... here's a mix of unitized curtainwall, Limestone, and ACM with custom 3-tone ACM. The ACM changes from green(ish) to grey to blue(ish) depending on view angle. The lime stone has visible fossils too. I'll see if I can dig up a pic.
One more....this is the last large project i did for my old office. A covered practice field next to a stadium. It's old by now, done when I was still in my mid 20's which is hard to imagine from where I sit now. It was very fun to work out how to make the fabric roof come together in a simple way. I spent a very long time on the edge details, finally working it out after seeing a stadium by Toyo Ito.
my first sketch was like this
we kind of got it, but a lot heavier in the end, partially because of earthquake calculations, but also because of the heavy stresses that needed to be resolved for the truss and the hold down cables that keep the roof in place. Brilliant learning experience. Not specifically transferable - cuz how many projects like this does a person really do in a career - but the process of turning idea into reality has held up.
Detail of the hold down cables for the roof and the roof edge we came up with.
Show your work: Creative Cladding
What systems do you use and like, what have you developed, what failures have you seen, what new or old materials are your go-tos?
Eastern white cedar, aka arborvitae--the tree of life, locally harvested, sawn and milled. The reverse board-and-batten system provides a built-in rain screen gap. The timber frame elements are eastern hemlock, also a local material. Both have some rot resistance and with good detailing should last a long, long time. This project will be in The Pretty Good House Book, due out in May--it's a Pretty Good Garage!
Liking that detail!
Thanks! You could say that I'm a wood guy...
Do you use cor-a-vent or something similar to let the water drain behind the horizontal battens?
Lovely building, by the way.
Thanks all! It was a fun project. There are no horizontal battens, just vertical cedar strips over a WRB and the face boards are nailed to that. We used B.Obdyke's Hydrogap under the lower, horizontal boards. Unconditioned storage buildings are much more forgiving than heated, moisture-laden houses in cold climates like mine (zone 6). We did use a ripped strip of Coravent to allow intake air and drainage at the upper section--you can just make out a 1/4" black strip. Again, not what I would do for a house but it worked fine here. The builder actually changed my detail, which would not have been as elegant.
i wish i could smell the pictures
Not bad for a non-architect ;-)
Even a stopped clock is right twice a day!
Midlander, send me your address and I'll mail you some offcuts.
wanted to burn it...but the labor was silly, so stained black cedar w/ a vert t&g + board/batten pattern. It shadows up well w/ raking light.
it lives over a diagonal 3/4 pt ply furring over ext insul; vented top/bottom
Beautiful! Do the batten sizes alternate in a regular or random pattern? I love the drip course and natural grass too.
it's a regular pattern, but it seems to have enough differential to give it some presence
we asked the sider to put a 1/16" gap at the t&g to keep a hairline there. it shows in true elevation that the t&g are 1x4 + 1x6 btwn battens. And battens alternate 1x2 & 2x2.
Wish I could hire wood guy in Georgia
the builders who care about their craft are not common
Haha, thanks Jose! I have done out-of-state consulting but I'm not well versed in warm climates and my schedule is ridiculous so I'm not taking on any new work. Planning a re-invention for mid-2022, having fun thinking about what it will look like.
Proto, that project was built by this company: https://www.benjamin-co.com/. It was our first project together but it got them through the worst of the pandemic and they were a pleasure to work with. Gotta love a builder who only proposes ideas that will make everything better, not just easier for them.
Alaskan cedar shingles and decking, standing seam copper roof, cement stucco chimney. If you look closely there is a hidden door to a storage shed. The copper roof leaves a green patina on the chimney, unexpectedly gorgeous.
Beautiful. Reminds me a bit of Edward Larrabee Barnes' work at Haystack School here in Maine. One of many reasons I prefer natural materials is the character they develop over time. Aged plastic just doesn't have the same effect.
very clean lines
i like the reserved quality of this
Asphalt roofing used over wood frame on a concrete base. Our first project in Tokyo. Still one of the best projects we have done. The garden space has only become better and the clients remain very good friends.
two of my children a couple of years after moving in. It has become wilder and more joyful since then.
we went to see the office of atelier bow-wow to work out if there were any issues with using this as a finish and came up with different corner details and added flashing on the top because the finish tends to collect dirt stains at the seams. We eliminated many of those but not all.
Awesome! Just saw this new(ish) fluid applied membrane while talking with one of our reps, really want to use it in a project like this. https://chasecorp.com/cimindustries/cim-1000/
Very cool. Did you paint the asphalt or is it available in that color there? I love creative use of tight spaces, and bringing a bit of nature into the city.
the asphalt is painted - with a plasticised waterproofing layer as i recall. There were only a few colors available and we went with this one, I think correctly. The hardest part of construction was to place the asphalt in the very tight spaces between properties. 3 men held the rolls it in place vertically, slowly unrolling it and keeping it level. They did a very good job of it, but I admit it is a much easier job to lay horizontally. We also needed to add a layer of fireproofing beneath the asphalt walls to meet fire-rating requirements, which increased cost more than we thought it would. So the cheap finish ended up being more expensive than we thought. The thing is, because of fire regulations in tokyo the only other options are stucco and cement panels of some kind. In the end I think this was the right material, but we did have to do some research to get it to work...
Realized that I don't actually have any built projects with cladding. They are all either interior architecture, under construction, curtain wall projects, or use the structure as the cladding like that precast school I did. Maybe next time. :(
Curtain walls are relatively foreign to me, aside from a couple of super modern homes where we used curtain wall systems. What would you say is the biggest difference between curtain wall and conventional construction?
Probably the underlying building structure. It totally changes how you think about and use the exterior wall. Hard to necessarily map onto smaller or residential scale projects.
I did so much CW work early in my career that I never even explored how much was possible in Type IIB, III, IV, and V construction from an area/ code/ separation/ program/ planning perspective. It was just assumed that you would use Type I or IIA so that you had composite or concrete slabs structured with steel or concrete members and you would hang the entire wall and any other cladding off of it.
I'm in a similar situation, and it's been sort of nagging at me the past year. I feel like I have a huge knowledge gap when it comes to exterior systems & cladding materials, and I feel like it's holding me back from advancing as a project architect. Hoping to break out soon and get into some big ol' wall details.
Changing up the scale a little... here's a mix of unitized curtainwall, Limestone, and ACM with custom 3-tone ACM. The ACM changes from green(ish) to grey to blue(ish) depending on view angle. The lime stone has visible fossils too. I'll see if I can dig up a pic.
One more....this is the last large project i did for my old office. A covered practice field next to a stadium. It's old by now, done when I was still in my mid 20's which is hard to imagine from where I sit now. It was very fun to work out how to make the fabric roof come together in a simple way. I spent a very long time on the edge details, finally working it out after seeing a stadium by Toyo Ito.
my first sketch was like this
we kind of got it, but a lot heavier in the end, partially because of earthquake calculations, but also because of the heavy stresses that needed to be resolved for the truss and the hold down cables that keep the roof in place. Brilliant learning experience. Not specifically transferable - cuz how many projects like this does a person really do in a career - but the process of turning idea into reality has held up.
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