10 Ideas for Approaching the Façade of Your House
The arrangement and proportions of a building’s windows, doors and features can affect the mood of both residents and passers-by
The design of a building’s elevation is crucial to its ‘personality’: the proportions and composition of doors and windows, materials, textures, the depth of overhangs and sills and many other devices all contribute to what a building says to you. So does your façade make you smile?
Don’t match
I like the contrast this image shows of two personalities. The house on the left is as was, cottagey (well, as cottagey as a terraced house of this type can be), while the house on the right has been altered to simplify the lines and create tall, elegant proportions.
The left-hand façade is possibly more ‘friendly’, with its multi-paned windows, shrubs and climbing plants, while the right-hand house is more cool and urban, with a Vespa parked outside and oodles of daylight pouring in.
Key considerations when planning external insulation
I like the contrast this image shows of two personalities. The house on the left is as was, cottagey (well, as cottagey as a terraced house of this type can be), while the house on the right has been altered to simplify the lines and create tall, elegant proportions.
The left-hand façade is possibly more ‘friendly’, with its multi-paned windows, shrubs and climbing plants, while the right-hand house is more cool and urban, with a Vespa parked outside and oodles of daylight pouring in.
Key considerations when planning external insulation
Get ahead with a curve
The personality of a façade isn’t only about the front of a building. The large, circular window on this otherwise cool rear extension brings a wry smile when viewed from the back garden, but also adds quirky drama to the bathroom inside.
The personality of a façade isn’t only about the front of a building. The large, circular window on this otherwise cool rear extension brings a wry smile when viewed from the back garden, but also adds quirky drama to the bathroom inside.
Update a classic
This house plays an interesting game of reimagining, in a more modernist style, the traditional forms and proportions of three windows in a vertical row and a two-storey bay.
The colour and texture of the brickwork is in keeping and the stone of the bay is muted in tone, but the cool windows have no brash white surrounds, unlike their showy neighbours, while the bay is outsized and deliberately rectangular and blocky. There is at once restraint and defiance expressed here.
This house plays an interesting game of reimagining, in a more modernist style, the traditional forms and proportions of three windows in a vertical row and a two-storey bay.
The colour and texture of the brickwork is in keeping and the stone of the bay is muted in tone, but the cool windows have no brash white surrounds, unlike their showy neighbours, while the bay is outsized and deliberately rectangular and blocky. There is at once restraint and defiance expressed here.
Adorn with garlands
Planting can play a huge role in how a façade comes across. Try to imagine this building without all the foliage: despite the generous scale of the glazing, there could be something rather austere and cold-shoulderish about it. However, softened as it is with the greens and purples of the bushes and trees, which are multiplied through the reflections in the huge windows, it takes on a much friendlier, more approachable personality.
Planting can play a huge role in how a façade comes across. Try to imagine this building without all the foliage: despite the generous scale of the glazing, there could be something rather austere and cold-shoulderish about it. However, softened as it is with the greens and purples of the bushes and trees, which are multiplied through the reflections in the huge windows, it takes on a much friendlier, more approachable personality.
Let colour light up your face
Colour on a façade, or on the front door, as here, can both exude personality and say a great deal about the occupants.
I can only imagine that whoever chose this orange door was no introvert. The sense of fun is palpable and the colour on the building plays against the natural tones of the timber cladding in a way that could have purists revolving in their monochrome graves. Something tells me that whoever lives here is too busy having fun to care less.
Colour on a façade, or on the front door, as here, can both exude personality and say a great deal about the occupants.
I can only imagine that whoever chose this orange door was no introvert. The sense of fun is palpable and the colour on the building plays against the natural tones of the timber cladding in a way that could have purists revolving in their monochrome graves. Something tells me that whoever lives here is too busy having fun to care less.
Tell a story
This Arts & Crafts-influenced façade on a house in the Channel Islands gives off a completely different character. It seems to be built of stories and tales, almost as if one of Tolkien’s wizards lives here, blowing magical smoke rings up through the chimneys.
The windows are relatively small and, in many instances, that can feel excluding and rude, but here there’s a benign air of mystery.
This Arts & Crafts-influenced façade on a house in the Channel Islands gives off a completely different character. It seems to be built of stories and tales, almost as if one of Tolkien’s wizards lives here, blowing magical smoke rings up through the chimneys.
The windows are relatively small and, in many instances, that can feel excluding and rude, but here there’s a benign air of mystery.
Study a modern master
Frank Lloyd Wright is one of the most celebrated architects of the 20th century and many of his houses, particularly in the earlier part of his career, employed deeply overhanging roofs, dramatic deep shadows and very strong horizontals.
It’s possible to see in this 1902-designed house an important source for the modernist movement that followed, but Lloyd Wright manages here to create a cool, quite exclusive modernity while still using a pitched roof, warm colours and lots of texture.
Frank Lloyd Wright is one of the most celebrated architects of the 20th century and many of his houses, particularly in the earlier part of his career, employed deeply overhanging roofs, dramatic deep shadows and very strong horizontals.
It’s possible to see in this 1902-designed house an important source for the modernist movement that followed, but Lloyd Wright manages here to create a cool, quite exclusive modernity while still using a pitched roof, warm colours and lots of texture.
Be understated
Modernism still has the power of tremendous cool and this very reduced and rigorous façade says sophistication to some, while suggesting, “I want to be alone,” to others. A façade has tremendous power to convey personality, but, as with any personality, it might be one to which only some people warm.
Modernism still has the power of tremendous cool and this very reduced and rigorous façade says sophistication to some, while suggesting, “I want to be alone,” to others. A façade has tremendous power to convey personality, but, as with any personality, it might be one to which only some people warm.
Play heavy and light off against each other
A 1960s house has here been completely remodelled, both internally and on the outside. Very deliberate use of rendered masonry (visually heavy) is punctured with windows and cuts, revealing the timber-clad box (visually light), which appears to be popping out from within the heavy outer masonry casing.
While the heavy element is a cool off-white, the warmth of the cedar-clad inner box creates an interesting interplay and, overall (in my opinion), a characterful balance.
Have you made changes to the exterior of your home? Tell us about them in the Comments below.
A 1960s house has here been completely remodelled, both internally and on the outside. Very deliberate use of rendered masonry (visually heavy) is punctured with windows and cuts, revealing the timber-clad box (visually light), which appears to be popping out from within the heavy outer masonry casing.
While the heavy element is a cool off-white, the warmth of the cedar-clad inner box creates an interesting interplay and, overall (in my opinion), a characterful balance.
Have you made changes to the exterior of your home? Tell us about them in the Comments below.
Designing a two-storey extension onto the side of this house within a conservation area required a fair amount of thought, care and detail, not least due to the delicate negotiations necessary to win planning approval.
The brickwork banding and details on the existing building were repeated on the extension, but the new section is set back, and has more modest window openings, so the bold arch of the porch and the bay window still retain their prominence.
The extension also has a modest parapet, which allows the ‘brow’ of the main roof eaves to remain as a formal ‘hat’ above the face of the house. To me, this building manages a fairly good balance of smart/casual, but the wonderful thing about reading façades is that everyone has a slightly different take.
See inside a Victorian house that takes a different approach to the style of its extension