Ask a Designer
Appropriate Siding Material for Urban Environments
Just as you need to wear different clothing for different weather or climates, buildings need different exterior siding to suit their environment. (And we don't mean in terms of the building envelope in this case.) We mean, if you're in a city, plan for graffiti.
January 31, 2012
Urban environments are pretty great places. Food, shopping, people, clubs, vibrant street life, they're all pretty awesome. I love cities. Cities, however, deserve some respect. Not just from people who'd prefer to live elsewhere of course, but from the buildings that live in them.
Cities are built to be tough places. They're not all soft and fuzzy. That's part of the appeal. Consequently, the buildings that go up in cities should be aware of how tough a city can be and respond accordingly.
Selecting material for siding in a city is something that takes a lot more consideration than choosing siding for a house in the country. Houses in the country don't get posters stapled on them, graffiti painted across the wall, and names carved into their siding.
That's why when I saw this the other day I was more than a little confused.
This is a picture of a new venue under construction and this wall of wood siding is directly on the property line next to a very busy sidewalk. Everything I have seen about this new project looks super promising and it is being designed by a firm that has done some great work and some well-known financiers. I have to wonder what they're thinking about putting acres of soft wood siding right where people are going to carve their name into it, tag it with graffiti, and staple posters all over the damn wall.
Honestly, I give it a few weeks.
Maybe I'm low on faith here but I think that far more durable materials are called for in such places. Graffiti coating on stone or brick, metal siding that can be cleaned and not punctured with a staple gun, concrete with graffiti coating or paint that can be re-painted. Anything but soft wood siding. I know that there are cases when the client really insists upon a material that the Architect doesn't love and as long as the Architect educates them on the perils then I guess it is OK. But in the end, I have to still think that it isn't a sustainable or smart thing to do.
I hope that the wood siding here lasts a long time and is always perfectly maintained and respected. I just don't think it will. I hope I'm wrong because I think it could be a very cool space and that maybe the city won't be so cruel this time.
