Cool Cladding

“The clients asked for a ‘different-looking’ home,” says the architect. “They also asked for a loft-style interior.” To fulfill the first requirement, the architects opted for a perforated and expanded aluminum facade. Enticingly tactile, it attracts attention, while screening much of the interior from view.

Idaho-based architect Susan Desko—previously a senior design architect for Frank Gehry—created a house built of untreated steel plate and glass that towers among the trees in Ketchum, Idaho.

With the owners requesting something "adventurous but subtle," architect Elijah Huge set out to find a cladding material that was both eye-catching and cost-effective. “I thought the shingles would be a good choice because they would echo the texture of the existing house without trying to imitate it.” Even better, the stamped recycled aluminum shingles cost just two dollars per square foot.

Neighbors surely can't miss the red-and-gray Vermont cladding from Everite’s Nutec line that makes this vacation home in South Africa an instant landmark (and a good deal warmer come winter) in a region full of rustic steel barns. “The color scheme pushes the envelope,” the owner says. “This town could do with some color.”

The Sunken House, so-named for its excavated site, is a dark, cedar-clad cube in a stuffy part of London, where weathered brick and clay chimney pots are more common than modernist angles. Locals have come to call it "Ed's Shed," after the owner, photographer Ed Reeve.

The wooden box is as functional as it is finely crafted, with room for clothes up top. Each niche holds treasures from travels, family keepsakes, books, and more.