6 Variations on Vertical Wood Façades

Wood has long been a building material that expresses warmth while acting as a structural element, as well. The earliest huts and wooden low-rise buildings have given way to steel, but wood is still coveted as a façade material. As technology has progressed, wood can be used in a variety of ways, often defying convention. Wood can be a translucent façade or a rain-screen. When it is placed vertically, wood takes on the characteristics of a tree or forest, but often architects like to manipulate its natural look by truncating it into some kind of figural outline, such as a rectangle or a house-like shape. These projects combine the natural and artificial into an ironic combination.

Here are some of our favorite vertical wooden designs from the Architizer database.

Wood Innovation and Design Centre by MGA | Michael Green Architecture, Prince George, Canada

Vertical wood shades are an ornamental touch on this building that is designed to showcase the structural capabilities of wood in mid- and high-rise construction. The building itself features timber products such as glulam columns and beams and mass timber walls.

Community Church Knarvikby Reiulf Ramstad Architects, Knarvik, Norway

Pre-weathered pine heartwood wraps this A+Award-winning building, giving it a uniform material across its dynamic massing. The different façades feature different arrangements of windows, which alternate with the wooden members to let light in and out based on the direction they face.