The Art of Joining Materials | Bedford Hills Real Estate

I remember the first time I set foot on a bustling construction site as an intern architect fresh out of school. It was the first time I connected the abstract vision I had been drawing on paper to the reality — and chaos — of construction. It all stood, literally and figuratively, in stark contrast to the design process. Hammers flying, tons of concrete being cast, beams being welded to soaring steel columns — it was hard to make sense of it all. This is when the true education of an architect begins, the moment when one realizes that the lines on paper represent the meeting points of materials, what we call joints.

Like most architects, I’m consumed with the process of making and the art of joining materials. What these joints say about a structure and how carefully they’ve been designed and crafted are hallmarks of good architecture. Let’s look at two projects that differ in their execution and style but share similarly striking results, due in large part to a skilled joining of materials.

Hammer & Hand

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Passive in Portland

This high-performance passive house is sited on a south-facing mountainside in Portland, Oregon. Capitalizing on the solar exposure, the house has a strong visual presence. Anchored by two vertical tower elements, which house the stairs and double-height spaces, the design is a complex composition of slipped volumes and geometry. To achieve this look while maintaining the strict energy performance goals was no small feat.

Articulation. Revealing the individual parts of an architectural composition and its place in the larger whole is called articulation. Architects use this term frequently, because it’s one of the ways we establish order in design. We express the different building blocks of architecture — the walls, floors, roof and ground planes — to achieve certain effects. Put simply, articulation is expression.

Viewed from afar, the volumes clad in white plaster and wood are articulated or expressed as distinct elements. The white is more vertically oriented and anchors the wood and glass volumes, which appear more horizontal. This is done using reveal joints.

 

 

 

 

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