Maybe she’s born with it. Maybe it’s CLT

Most any architectural professor will tell you that the majority of architectural advancements over the past few decades have innovated how we handle a building’s façade. While the façade is an incredibly important component of the any building I can’t help but wonder why it has been attracting so much interest as of late. Is it because the practice has exhausted all of the possibilities of building interiors or is this increased interest in façade a reflection on our society’s growing obsession with vanity?

We are all guilty of too quickly passing judgment on a building based off of a 2 minute Google Image search. Most of the search results are exterior shots that we then use to deem the building as ugly and dismiss the possibility of it actually being good architecture. The functionality of the building and the quality of the interior spaces it creates are just as, if not more, important as how the building looks to a passerby. Conversely, facades can be used like makeup to bring interest to a building that is otherwise dull and uninspired. All this is simply to say don’t judge a building by its cover.