Above Board: Fibre Cement Makes a Comeback
Once confined to beach shacks and sheds, fibre cement has made a comeback – only this time it's crisp and contemporary with myriad uses
In the late 19th century, an Austrian inventor by the name of Ludwig Hatschek invented a product he called Eternit, or what we’d call, somewhat prosaically, fibre-cement panels. He took a mix of cement and asbestos powder – more on this in a moment – mixed it with water and then ran it through a cardboard machine. In doing so, he developed a process for making strong, thin sheets that quickly found favour around the world: they’ve been in continuous production since 1905.
In New Zealand, the panels found particular favour around the middle of the century: they were cheap, strong, hard-wearing and easy to assemble, and they found their way onto baches at the beach and modernist houses in the city: the distinctive grey of the unpainted panels is familiar to anyone who’s spent time in an old bach.
In New Zealand, the panels found particular favour around the middle of the century: they were cheap, strong, hard-wearing and easy to assemble, and they found their way onto baches at the beach and modernist houses in the city: the distinctive grey of the unpainted panels is familiar to anyone who’s spent time in an old bach.
Port of call
Nowhere is the raw beauty of cement board shown better than with this rugged holiday cabin for an extended stay beside the water at Port Hadlock in the US, by Eggleston Farkas Architects. The house needed to be simple and hard-wearing – the focus being on water activities rather than maintenance – and so the firm specified a palette of basic, elemental materials including steel gutters, timber and cement board.
Nowhere is the raw beauty of cement board shown better than with this rugged holiday cabin for an extended stay beside the water at Port Hadlock in the US, by Eggleston Farkas Architects. The house needed to be simple and hard-wearing – the focus being on water activities rather than maintenance – and so the firm specified a palette of basic, elemental materials including steel gutters, timber and cement board.
Where the architects went a little further – delightfully, to my mind – was inside, where the cladding carries on, providing a hard-wearing interior. The colour is an added bonus – how lovely is the combination of birch ply and fibre cement panels?
The key here – as with a lot of projects – is in the negative detailing, which is when a series of battens are attached to the framing of the house, and then the cladding is attached to the battens with a small gap between each panel. It gives a crisp, articulated look – and it allows any water that enters the structure to drain out the bottom.
Beach life
Similarly, Watershed Design used cement board to excellent effect on this family home in Manly, Sydney. When designing the four-bedroom home on a narrow site, the architects specified hard-wearing materials including a steel frame, polished concrete floors, plywood and fibre cement panels.
Similarly, Watershed Design used cement board to excellent effect on this family home in Manly, Sydney. When designing the four-bedroom home on a narrow site, the architects specified hard-wearing materials including a steel frame, polished concrete floors, plywood and fibre cement panels.
The house is designed to be as sustainable as possible – warm in winter and cool in summer thanks to deep eaves and cross-ventilation. The cement board goes with that aesthetic: it’s no-nonsense yet warm, and it wears very nicely indeed. There’s something gutsy and essentially Australian about the place – without being hackneyed.
Material love
Through a number of projects, New York, USA, practice Resolution: 4 Architecture has used fibre-cement panels in crisp, elegantly detailed ways that show just what a fantastic material it is.
On a recent project in the Berkshires they used Equitone panels, which are made in Europe and come pre-finished in a variety of colours. The dark grey seen here is particularly effective – it’s sophisticated and recessive, perfect for the wooded area around the house. The contrast with the timber detailing on the roofline and around the windows is beautiful.
Through a number of projects, New York, USA, practice Resolution: 4 Architecture has used fibre-cement panels in crisp, elegantly detailed ways that show just what a fantastic material it is.
On a recent project in the Berkshires they used Equitone panels, which are made in Europe and come pre-finished in a variety of colours. The dark grey seen here is particularly effective – it’s sophisticated and recessive, perfect for the wooded area around the house. The contrast with the timber detailing on the roofline and around the windows is beautiful.
The practice took a slightly different approach with a mountain retreat with views of the Catskill Mountains. Here, the architects used cement board to clad the entry and staircase, in beautiful contrast to the cedar cladding on the rest of the building – but instead of a negative detail, which would have been somehow too urban in these rugged environs, they butted the panels up against each other. Used in this way, the cement board looks almost like beaten steel or zinc cladding, but has more texture. It’s the perfect foil to a rocky, hard coastal landscape.
Which doesn’t mean that cement board doesn’t belong in the city: Resolution: 4 also designed an urban infill prefabricated house on Eastchester Bay in the Bronx, using nicely detailed cement board with cedar accents. Mainly, this was to keep maintenance requirements to a minimum, but the aesthetic of the house was also based on the diverse colours and textures of the surrounding urban environment. As a result, the place slips into its diverse neighbourhood quite beautifully.
Boundary line
In Bondi, Sydney, meanwhile, Matt Fearns used full-length panels of pre-finished fibre-cement on a boundary wall. At first glance, it’s not the kind of thing you’d expect, but the gentle rawness of the material is the perfect foil for the house, which is built of brick and timber. The other materials have also been left in as plain a state as possible.
In Bondi, Sydney, meanwhile, Matt Fearns used full-length panels of pre-finished fibre-cement on a boundary wall. At first glance, it’s not the kind of thing you’d expect, but the gentle rawness of the material is the perfect foil for the house, which is built of brick and timber. The other materials have also been left in as plain a state as possible.
Over the cement sheets, a series of creeping fig (Ficus pumila) tendrils are slowly making their way up the wall, making for the perfect – and not particularly expensive – urban side yard.
Fishing expedition
Chadbourne + Doss Architects designed a house in Seattle, USA, with a simple gable form and carefully-placed windows inspired by lobster boats: economical, purposeful and durable. The house was built on an existing basement in a densely built-up area – so they had to go up rather than out, which also meant gaining views of Portage Bay.
Chadbourne + Doss Architects designed a house in Seattle, USA, with a simple gable form and carefully-placed windows inspired by lobster boats: economical, purposeful and durable. The house was built on an existing basement in a densely built-up area – so they had to go up rather than out, which also meant gaining views of Portage Bay.
The architects chose raw cedar, steel and cement-board cladding: honest, hard-working materials that will age well. Eventually, the cedar will fade to silver, a shade or two lighter than the grey cladding.
Out of the shadows
It’s not the first material that comes to mind when you’re updating a heritage brick townhouse in York, UK, but Doma Architects specified slate-grey cement board for the extension to this semi-detached property in a conservation area. And it looks brilliant.
Increasingly, heritage rules call for new additions to old buildings to be aesthetically different to the original – instead of building on in the same style, it’s thought that by building something distinct, you respect the original more.
It’s not the first material that comes to mind when you’re updating a heritage brick townhouse in York, UK, but Doma Architects specified slate-grey cement board for the extension to this semi-detached property in a conservation area. And it looks brilliant.
Increasingly, heritage rules call for new additions to old buildings to be aesthetically different to the original – instead of building on in the same style, it’s thought that by building something distinct, you respect the original more.
As a result, the extension is set a foot or so off to the side of the original, linked by long windows. The size and scale of the addition is sympathetic to its neighbour, and yet recessive, stepping back – almost as if the extension is a shadow of the original (which is why the project was known as the Shadow House).
Heritage darling
In a similar context, in the heritage suburb of Grey Lynn in Auckland, New Zealand, Richard Naish of RTA Studio designed an abstracted ‘house’ to replace an out-of-context bungalow on a street of Victorian villas. The house was built as a sealed box, with a rain-screen of white fibre-cement panels laid over the top, with a combination of fixed and mobile screens, which allow the residents to screen off rooms for shade and privacy. The patterns are abstracted from the fretwork on the old wooden villas in the area.
In a similar context, in the heritage suburb of Grey Lynn in Auckland, New Zealand, Richard Naish of RTA Studio designed an abstracted ‘house’ to replace an out-of-context bungalow on a street of Victorian villas. The house was built as a sealed box, with a rain-screen of white fibre-cement panels laid over the top, with a combination of fixed and mobile screens, which allow the residents to screen off rooms for shade and privacy. The patterns are abstracted from the fretwork on the old wooden villas in the area.
They make a gentle nod to the weatherboards of the surrounding houses, but are very clearly modern in their appearance and give a sense of depth to the facade. At the back, Naish wrapped the house around a courtyard, with the rear elevation connected to the main house by a low-slung concrete box. Here, too, he played with the panels, laying them vertically rather than horizontally, riffing on the collection of lean-tos and buildings of old.
TELL US
What do you think of the use of fibre-cement panels in these homes? Would you consider it for your next project?
MORE
Have a look through more contemporary cladding ideas
TELL US
What do you think of the use of fibre-cement panels in these homes? Would you consider it for your next project?
MORE
Have a look through more contemporary cladding ideas
Obviously, if you have a home that was built before about 1980 that has fibre-cement cladding, you’ll want to consult the experts before doing anything – cladding containing asbestos is generally safe if left undisturbed and well maintained, but can be dangerous if you try to remove it yourself, or it starts to degrade.
But if you’re building new, and especially on a budget? Consider using it, even as an accent – as with this lovely boxed window on a house in Grand Rapids, Michigan by Lucid Architecture. Just make sure you find a product that is designed to be left unpainted – it looks best that way, I think.