Fiber Cement Facades in Architecture: 9 Notable Examples

Fiber Cement Facades in Architecture: 9 Notable Examples

How to build light and modular facades with a rustic and monolithic appearance?

Composed of cement, cellulose, and mineral materials, fiber cement allows us to clad walls in a light, non-combustible, and rain-resistant way, generating facades with different textures, colors, and tones. Its panels are easily manageable and perforable, and can configure ventilated facades when installed with a certain separation between the rear wall. Check out 9 projects below that have cleverly used fiber cement as the primary material in facades.

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Panel para Fachada Tectiva | Equitone. Image Cortesía de Equitone

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24 Housing Units / Zanon + Bourbon Architects. Image © Olivier Dancy

24 Housing Units / Zanon + Bourbon Architects

The facade of this group of houses consists of panels perforated by metal frames, which include lacquered wooden windows. The random arrangement of fiber cement panels generates variations in their different orientations.

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24 Housing Units / Zanon + Bourbon Architects. Image © Olivier Dancy
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24 Housing Units / Zanon + Bourbon Architects. Image © Olivier Dancy

Single Family House Hoffstad / Knut Hjeltnes

Located in a wet and windy terrain, this project took special care in choosing the exterior cladding of the house, covering its wooden structure with fiber cement panels that respond effectively to rainwater.

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Casa Hoffstad / Knut Hjeltnes. Image © Inger Marie Grini
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Casa Hoffstad / Knut Hjeltnes. Image © Inger Marie Grini

Lighthouse / Room11 Architects

The exterior image of this house mixes fiber cement panels with blocks of cement, gravel, and vegetation, highlighting the windows and wooden doors in the middle of the gray texture of its walls.

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© Benjamin Hosking
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Lighthouse / Room11 Architects. Image © Benjamin Hosking

Villa GK / CORE Architects

The fiber cement panels have been used in this case as a shading strategy, ensuring the privacy of the rooms and delivering a characteristic image to the rest of the building.

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Villa GK / CORE Architects. Image © Alexander Bogorodskiy
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Villa GK / CORE Architects. Image © Alexander Bogorodskiy

GZ House / Studio Cáceres Lazo

As its architects say, in this house in Chile, fiber cement sheets were used to "clad the whole of the steel structure that arises from the slab that shapes the house. An air chamber between this skin and the house’s inner envelope is placed to help with its thermal comfort. Because of its color, the cladding and concrete give the house a monolithic appearance, only subverted by the glass façade that faces the panorama."

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Casa GZ / Studio Cáceres Lazo. Image © Pablo Casals Aguirre
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Casa GZ / Studio Cáceres Lazo. Image © Pablo Casals Aguirre

Livsrum - Cancer Counseling Center / EFFEKT

This hospital in Denmark uses white fiber cement as a way to unify the different units of the project, each with a specific function. In this way, the building delivers a clean image towards the street at a scale that is friendly to its context and its users.

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Livsrum - Centro de Asesoramiento del Cáncer / EFFEKT. Image Cortesía de EFFEKT
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Livsrum - Centro de Asesoramiento del Cáncer / EFFEKT. Image © Quintin Lake

City Square Mortsel / ABSCIS Architecten

This building in Belgium combines its façade of fiber cement panels with wooden windows arranged in an apparently random manner.

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City square Mortsel / ABSCIS Architecten. Image Cortesía de Equitone
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City square Mortsel / ABSCIS Architecten. Image © Thomas de Bruyne

DE BAEDTS House / Architektuuburo Dirk Hulpia

Setting up a rather closed façade, which is only 'broken' at certain points through windows, this house mixes fiber cement panels with a dark brick covering, highlighting certain volumes in its two levels.

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Casa DE BAEDTS / Architektuuburo Dirk Hulpia. Image © Alejandro Rodríguez
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Casa DE BAEDTS / Architektuuburo Dirk Hulpia. Image © Alejandro Rodríguez

Casa CM / Paolo Carlesso

The gable roof takes advantage of the panels of fiber cement to generate a facade ventilated in all its faces. The panels cover even the windows, generating a completely gray volume when closed.

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Casa CM / Paolo Carlesso. Image © Simone Bossi
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Casa CM / Paolo Carlesso. Image © Simone Bossi

About this author
Cite: Franco, José Tomás. "Fiber Cement Facades in Architecture: 9 Notable Examples" [Fachadas de fibrocemento en la arquitectura: 9 ejemplos notables] 31 Oct 2019. ArchDaily. Accessed . <https://www.archdaily.com/904642/fiber-cement-facades-in-architecture-9-notable-examples> ISSN 0719-8884

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