Architects about facades

An interesting project, and one whose idea really appeals to me: eco-friendliness and the union of opposites, exclusive luxury goods and recycled materials.

For the new Bulgari store in Shanghai, MVRDV created a green jade façade made of brass and recycled champagne and beer bottles.

The Art Deco architecture is a nod to Shanghai itself, a blend of Eastern and Western cultures.

The panels are made of sintered green glass with a translucent effect, which looks striking.

And the gold-colored brass trim is a nod to jade jewelry.

At night, the lighting further enhances the unique texture of the glass, and it is designed to keep the façade's energy consumption to a minimum.

This is the third Bulgari store whose façade was designed by MVRDV. The Kuala Lumpur store has a marble façade with gold veining, and the one in Bangkok also combines brass and glass, but in warm yellow hues and with more emphasis on the openings.

The Pantone Institute has named the color of the coming year. In the past the color was chosen from the existing palette, but this year the team created a brand-new one.

The color of the year for 2022 is PANTONE 17-3938 Very Peri.

According to Laurie Pressman, vice president of the Pantone Color Institute, "the color of the year reflects what is taking place in our global culture," so amid the wave of emerging from isolation while also pushing the boundaries of the virtual world, the experts created a new color that blends the "constancy" of blue with the "energy and excitement" of red.

It's a new color, but you can spot a certain cyclical pattern in these picks: four years ago, in 2018, the color of the year was Ultra Violet, and in 2014 it was Radiant Orchid.

In architecture, this color works well on futuristic forms as accent lighting.

To me, Very Peri feels softer, more lyrical, more dreamy. It's the reflected light of a sunset on the trim. Hues of lavender, delicate violet, and a hint of pink undertones look especially striking on white facades and on houses finished in dark steel.

So what exactly is majolica?

In the broad sense, the term is used for all glazed ceramics. Strictly speaking, true majolica should be glazed twice: first a background layer for the pattern, then a transparent glaze on top, after which it's fired at a high temperature. Usually the tiles are patterned, but they can also be a solid single color.

I often use majolica mosaics in the projects I work on.

Majolica has an uneven surface, so it scatters light in different directions and catches the eye. That makes it great for accents on a facade—a small amount is all you need.

Which areas of a facade can be accented?

• — entrances
• — window frames
• — individual panels
• — the cornice
• — flights of stairs
• — column inserts

Majolica pairs well with matte materials—wood, plaster, and brick.

Important! Since it already contrasts so strongly in texture with these materials, the color contrast should be kept low—it works well when the majolica picks up the shades of the other facade finishes.

You also have to keep proportions in mind. More isn't always better. A good example is the main accent piece above the entryway with supporting elements above the windows. Or a string course paired with a panel crowning the main gable.

The classic look of a house never goes out of style, no matter how hard modern flat-roofed houses try to take the lead. Today I'll break down a recent French château-inspired project I worked on and talk about the techniques I used while designing the facade.

The first thing to look for is symmetry, one of the defining traits of the classical tradition. The bold central projection, with the wide main staircase framed by balusters, immediately sets a stately tone.

The decoration is lavish, yet it never jars the eye, because it stays within a single pastel palette and the transitions between elements are kept as smooth as possible.

By decoration I don't just mean window frames or pilasters. The ground floor is fully rusticated, and above the openings there are rusticated arches and three-dimensional elements like keystones.

At the corners of the second floor are corner quoins that echo the ground-floor rustication.

Higher up, I added framing to the dormer windows with semicircular tympanums to balance out the many corners, along with graceful brackets on the pilasters.

But since everything is essentially the same color, you need different materials to keep the facade from looking dull.

The ground floor, which is more visible and interacts with people the most, is faced with the more expensive natural stone; the second floor is set off by a string course and plastered, and the projection above the entrance portal is tiled.

A house by Indian architects that I particularly liked. They did a wonderful job of combining modern architecture with pleasing patterns! Two years ago I wrote a post about an ethnic trend that seemed to be emerging. This house is a perfect illustration of it.

So much vernacular, human-scaled design has been lost and replaced by a uniform international approach, in which any pattern or pleasing flourish is treated as a crime against the idea of rationality. And of course this approach dismissed "old," "naïve" art as a relic, and ethnic design seemed to threaten the globalist project.

I'm all for finding a balance. You don't have to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Corbusier is great, but for all his radicalism he lacks softness. A house isn't only a machine for living—it's also a place of aesthetic experience. A house should be pleasant for a child and an elderly woman, not just the man in the suit. A home should remind us who we are, where we come from, and where we're going.

It's a special feeling to be inside well-made "historic" buildings. When you step out of the context of decades, in which my rationalist Soviet-era house was built, and into the context of centuries, it's a different scale, a different perspective.

Ethnic style speaks to me on an even broader level—the level of millennia of human history. That's why it's so fascinating to be in Indonesian villages. Traditional arts and crafts are still alive there, even as people build modern homes to please tourists. This blend gives rise to surprisingly comfortable and beautiful spaces.

Native patterns, carvings, and weaving make for such lovely details.

Here are some details in the architectural review of this house: archi.capital/howto/144

The choice of tones for a facade comes down to the client's personal taste. Either direction can look equally interesting and stylish.

In this project, for example, the range of tones is fairly wide, yet all four options look bright, polished, and entirely fitting.

The light shades look fresh, open, and welcoming.

Keep in mind, though, that a darker color heats up more in the sun, so the temperature inside will rise more in hot weather, too.

Saturated colors are also more prone to fading.

One more important detail about shades: even if you're absolutely delighted with the chosen color in the project, sketch, or rendering, in reality it will turn out a little different—so it's worth doing test swatches of the actual paint.

An interesting house that sits at the crossroads of country and half-timbered styles.

One unusual detail is the color of the thermowood beams along the top of the facade.

In the traditional take on half-timbered houses, these beams are usually dark.

For this project I chose white, which adds lightness and freshens up the facade.

By using decorative beams and alternating two colors of plaster on the second floor, I disguised the asymmetric windows on the main gable—and their complete absence on the side facade. Diagonal sections let me tie the carport into the overall look of the house.

We recently published a post about glass bricks and glass blocks and how they're enjoying a new wave of popularity, including in exterior finishes.

Here's another impressive example of them used on a facade.

It's a restaurant called Artisans Ayutthaya in Bangkok.

It's a very unusual combination of wood and glass blocks. And the whole project actually started from unsold leftover blocks that had been written off as unsellable.

In place of "mortar," a steel frame holds the blocks together, and it's clad in wood on the outside.

This creates an interesting effect, with the color of the wood reflected in the glass gaps.

The technique itself is original and, it seems, still has no equivalent.

We recently published a post about glass bricks and glass blocks and how they're enjoying a new wave of popularity, including in exterior finishes.

Here's another impressive example of them used on a facade.

The Artisans Ayutthaya restaurant in Bangkok.

It's a very unusual combination of wood and glass blocks. And the whole project actually started from unsold leftover blocks that had been written off as unsellable.

In place of "mortar," a steel frame holds the blocks together, and it's clad in wood on the outside.

This creates an interesting effect, with the color of the wood reflected in the glass gaps.

The technique itself is original and, it seems, still has no equivalent.

A bright, colorful facade on the Ecuadorian pavilion at the Milan expo.

What do you think it's finished with? Solar panels, metal, or vinyl siding?

None of the above. This is an unusual way of finishing a facade—with anodized aluminum chains from the Spanish company Kriskadecor.

Until recently, these chains could only be used indoors.

Now there's a version for facades. Its main selling points include non-conductivity, non-combustibility, and resistance to rust, acids, and oxidation.

The finish can be tailored to any size and design, and it can reproduce images or patterns.

It's also a great tool for shading. Take a look at how it can be used.

Opacity ranges from 40% to 60% when light hits it at a 90º angle.

Here's a tip from a recent project.

My headache was the blank side wall on the second floor. It stuck out too much and looked out of proportion, so I added fake shutters to suggest a window opening. That made the facade more harmonious and cohesive.

And to soften the impression of the home's additions sitting at different levels, the stone base rises up into the walls in a few spots.

Another option that came to mind was styling it as a half-timbered house. This makes the house look more austere and pulled together, partly because of the cooler gray color. The decorative beams on the facade match the wooden railings on the porch.

I honestly can't decide which option I like better, but the client has already made up his mind—he prefers the first one.