Material as Structure

There is a habit in contemporary building of hanging a surface on a frame and calling it architecture. Brick slips, stone veneer, timber cladding over a cavity — each can be done well, and each can be a picture of a material that is not doing any work.

We would rather the thing you touch is the thing that holds.

On a house the primary finish is often the structure. Board-formed concrete that remains the wall. A timber frame that remains the soffit. A stone plinth that is the retaining wall, not a skirt.

These decisions are taken early, because they change the plan. A concrete wall wants fewer openings and a different span. Thermally modified timber is on Villa Arca because it will silver in salt air. Brick is on Atelier Han because it was already there.

Weathering is part of the specification. A material chosen for a photograph on opening day will disappoint in the second summer. We ask how the surface will take sun, salt and a hose.

Lime will dust. Oak will silver. Concrete will mark at the tap. If those changes are acceptable, the material can stay. If they are not, choose another — do not coat the first one into a different product.

There are places for a lining. A service wall, a wet room, a hall that must take a hanging. The lining is then a layer with a job, not a disguise. It stops at a reveal you can see.

Cladding lies when it has to say something the structure does not. To paint a concrete wall is to hide it. If it has to be hidden, the wall was assembled wrongly.

Samples come to the studio as pieces we can leave outside. A week of rain and sun tells us more than a data sheet. If a stone darkens in a way we cannot accept, it leaves the job.

There is a point in every job when someone asks for a warmer tone. The honest answer is usually a change of thickness or of shadow, not a change of colour. A deeper reveal will warm a room faster than a cream paint.