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.
© Ema Peter Photography
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.
© ements Photography
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.
© arba
The House in the Grove by arba, Veneux-les-Sablons, France
The wooden roof is clad in stick panels, making a solid mass that reinvents the traditional gable roof.
© LOG-URBIS
Olive Houseby LOG-URBIS, Stara Novalja, Croatia
The wooden façade is sandwiched between two horizontal concrete buns.
© NORD Architecture
The Shingle House by NORD Architecture, Kent, United Kingdom
The vertical board cladding is coated in a black protective tar.
© Arhitektura Jure Kotnik
Kindergarten Jelkaby Arhitektura Jure Kotnik, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Thin vertical wooden cladding maintains its natural color.