Inside and out: Hardie™ products in every home

A modern Australian home renovation doesn’t have to marry itself to just one look. This season on The Block, the contestants showed just how powerful it can be to mix and match Hardie™ exterior cladding solutions – not just for aesthetic appeal, but to achieve functional facades.

Architect Julian Brenchley, who has designed The Block houses since the very beginning, says the variety and flexibility of the Hardie™ Architectural Collection was key to crafting the bold designs featured in The Block 2025.

On his approach for this season, he says: “Really, it’s looking at how the family of products might work together.

“We’ve used board and batten on a few of The Block houses in varying widths, and [we came] to this realisation that their wide style is quite striking and a sort of Australian response,” he adds. “You get that mix-and-match ability in the Hardie™ cladding range which allows us to play a little bit [with the designs].”

Whether you’re dreaming of a Modern Coastal renovation, a revamped Barn look or are chasing that contemporary minimalist edge, this season’s houses will give you a real-life masterclass on how to blend styles with confidence – and why a combination of exterior solutions by James Hardie could make all the difference.

How they did it for The Block houses

The Block House 2

House 2 leaned into a Box Modern design with geometric massing and defined volumes.

“We looked at the palette of materials available through James Hardie’s portfolio of fibre cement exterior solutions, and to delineate between the two forms – the lower forms, the wings and the central higher form – we chose to do the lower wings in the Matrix™ Cladding,” Brenchley says. “That is the bigger panel product with articulation lines [and installed with a 10mm expressed joint].”

“And then for the higher central form – we wanted a bit of texture to that, so we chose the Linea™ Weatherboard with the Hardie™ Axent™ Trim, so that gives it quite a good contrast between the forms.”

Here, contrast was used to define purpose – the articulated Matrix™ Cladding panels set up a solid, grounded base, while the overlapping boards of Linea™ Weatherboard added definition to the upper storey. The use of Hardie™ Axent™ Trim added board-and-batten finesse and clean, crisp lines.

H3: The Block House 4

House 4 was another Box Modern build, this time introducing Stria™ Cladding Fine Texture as a design-forward alternative to brick.

“The lower form is brick, and then the upper storey uses the Stria™ Cladding Fine Texture to create quite a striking difference,” Brenchley says. “[It] creates a feature with the [upper areas of the home] using the Stria™ Cladding Fine Texture board, which is quite a pleasing response in design.”

This deliberate juxtaposition – the crisp, clean lines of Stria™ Cladding Fine Texture set against traditional brick – resulted in a visually bold and contemporary silhouette. It’s proof that when planning a mixed-materials facade, the palette must serve the overall form.

“It’s not a uniform look across the whole build, and that’s quite an interesting way to do it,” he adds.

The Block House 5

According to Brenchley, House 5 took on the popular Modern Farmhouse aesthetic, with its gabled form using wide board and batten spacing for dramatic effect.

“That’s the gable form, Barn style,” he says. “We opted to use the board and batten there…with exterior solutions by James Hardie, including the Hardie™ Fine Texture Cladding as the ‘board’ and then the battens on top to accentuate the vertical lines.”

“Every facade of that house, whether you’re looking at the Barn end or the long end, has its own sort of scale to it using that board and batten.”

This design embraced scale and simplicity – the generous batten spacing suited the larger volumes of the home, showing that proportion plays a huge role when mixing materials.

How to confidently mix and match Hardie™ cladding products on your own build

The best advice when mixing and matching cladding? Brenchley says it starts with getting hands-on.

“You should see my desk when I’m designing – it’s just covered in samples,” he says. “Have [the material] in your hand. Play with it. See what works together as composition. A sample board or a flat lay is a critical component to your initial responses and getting a composition together.”

Here are a few tips to help renovators and home builders get it right:

• Pick a hero: Choose one primary cladding as the foundation, then build around it with complementary materials like battens or contrasting panels.
• Work with proportion: Smaller homes can benefit from tighter batten spacing or thinner weatherboards, while larger facades can carry bolder panel sizes.
• Stick to a story: “Don’t overcook it,” Brenchley says. “If you’ve got a simple message, stay with a simple message. If you want to mix and match, be cautious about how you do it.”

Extend the look internally

Brenchley also recommends extending your external material choices indoors – a trick that adds depth and brings a consistency to the overall design.

“If you get the opportunity – and often you do – bring it into the interior,” he says. “Perhaps use some of James Hardie’s array of exterior and trim product lines internally, like the boys did at Phillip Island for The Block 2024. They used the Hardie™ Oblique™ Cladding both externally and internally – clever.”

Even a single interior feature wall using your external cladding can give you that final design flourish.