How to Choose the Right Exterior Materials for Your Environment

Whether you want classic, coastal style or a modern, edgy facade, considering your home’s immediate environment is key to choosing the design and materials best suited to its setting.

These three looks explain how taking colour, texture and style cues – both natural and manmade – from your surrounds can inspire a home that both stands out from the crowd while blending seamlessly into the streetscape.

THE LOOK: MODERN COASTAL

Characteristics that are synonymous with a coastal home – clean, simple lines and a neutral palette – are timeless, nature-inspired features that can be made modern by combining multiple materials to introduce textural interest. Using a combination of surfaces will also create the look of an architecturally designed – rather than mass-produced – home that feels uniquely you.

Scyon™ Stria™ cladding, particularly when juxtaposing vertical weatherboard with larger panels, is ideal for achieving a modern, coastal look. Observing a restrained colour palette of cool grey shades – reminiscent of the ocean, stormy skies and salty air – can be warmed up by introducing natural materials to offset cladding. For example, a timber garage door, brick feature wall or bamboo fencing.

THE LOOK: INDUSTRIAL COUNTRY

Achieving the same look of traditional weatherboards without the expense and maintenance of timber is an appealing option for new homeowners, who are able to take advantage of modern alternatives. Scyon Linea™️ cladding has the look and feel of timber boards while offering the benefit of being resistant to heat and moisture damage, saving homeowners on time and maintenance costs.

When designing the exterior of your dream country home, think beyond using one material and consider others that are evocative of rural Australia to complement your weatherboard facade. Corrugated iron and spotted gum accents – used for a door, feature wall or fence – will offset larger cladded areas to create a striking, one-of-a-kind look that makes a stylish statement while remaining right at home within its environment.

THE LOOK: TRENDY CITY

A diverse, urban landscape is the perfect place to take style cues for a truly unique mixed materials façade. To reflect an inner city aesthetic, steel and cement-based cladding work together to create an industrial style that can be softened with natural accents of timber and brick.

A lightweight material such as Scyon Matrix™️ cladding lends itself to the trademark boxy shapes found in modernist-style homes, and is ideal for creating sharp, geometric shapes on small blocks. For inner city homes where space is often limited, adding an outdoor living area offers to option of combining cladding with a steel balustrade for a modern industrial look. Crisp, white rendering and some cool metal or stone accents will lend a high-end, custom made feel.

Homeowners can achieve a distinctive look by breaking up sections or storeys with different colours ­and mixing horizontal and vertical lines – darker hues used for larger areas, such as charcoal cladding on an exterior, can immediately make a façade appear sleek and urban. Keeping to a neutral colour palette will ensure textural materials shine as the focal point, complementing a diverse streetscape.