T I L E

it was during one of our very first meetings on this project, before the scope had even been defined, that 

this tile came up. that seems to happen frequently on these smaller residential projects - clients will become 

fixated on one design detail/element/material and it is the defining piece of the project for them. the issue here 

was figuring out how to both fulfill the client's desire for an extremely expensive material and maintain the best

possible design of the space.

this master bathroom is not large and in order to make it feel more spacious, the plan was kept as open as 

possible and we limited the palate to three materials: a textured wall surface, the continuous concrete floor, and 

white fixtures/accents/paint. any glazing would be full wall slices - floor to (very high) ceiling - to keep as 

much continuous vertical surface as possible and make the space appear bigger. the large, walk-in shower was

designed to read as a volume within a thickened one of these surfaces. it took a lot of unplanned work to get our

client to see that most of the 'dream' bathrooms they tore out of magazines followed these minimalist tenets.

having forgotten our earlier conversation about the heath dimensional tile, the obvious choice to us for the 

textured wall surface was stone. when we were reminded about the tile, a very long process, with many, many 

renderings, ensued. heath tile is absurdly expensive and to use it as the textured surface for even this modest 

sized bathroom would have been nearly as much as our entire metal roof. the client wanted to use it on one 

surface as a accent wall and then another tile everywhere else. it took some convincing but they eventually 

realized that the only possible accent wall was covered in fixtures (sink, mirror, toilet) which would defeat its 

purpose and switching materials would make the space feel cluttered. they found an alternative tile, in the same 

color, also handmade, that is very similar to heath dimensional tile that gave them both the tile and the spacious 

bathroom they had been dreaming of.

what is the point of writing an essay about this? i think my most valuable lessons about client-driven design

came from the bathrooms on this project. especially: when a client brings a tile sample for a bathroom to an

early scope discussion, take note. 

here is the tiled shower pre-grout. the smooth concrete finish skim coat will slope to the thin edge of the shower

drain and then fill the metal pan creating a quarter-inch slit to drain water from the floor.

W O O D . S I D I N G

the project has a always maintained a clear distinction between the outside surface of the wrapper (dark) and the
inside surface (light). the angled ceilings of the interior are clad in a lye-bleached wood while the exterior is 
painted white wood so that the underside reads as a continuous surface from inside to out. the detail at the 
fascia edge where it met the wood needed to be as tight as possible so that the outline of the form felt like a 
single extrusion. we went back and forth on whether the wood on the vertical surfaces (walls) should run 
horizontal or vertical and ultimately decided to run the wood continuous with the slat screen.

H E N R Y ' S

we decided to use henry's airbloc 33mr as the surface material on the main facade for several reasons. first and 
foremost, conceptually, the surface needed to be black or near black to read uniformly as a single layer with the 
glazing during the day to contrast with the white of the gradient slat screen. we wanted a smooth texture that 
would be appear seamless (in opposition to the seamed roof) and wouldn't require upkeep or change much over 
time (once we decided not to make the slat screen demount-able, this became our top priority as the material 
would more or less have to remain 'as is' for the life of the building). finally, we liked the idea of a micro-thin, 
liquid applied membrane that adhered directly to the plywood sheathing to provide both our air/water barrier and 
our siding, eliminating both construction time and material expense. although airbloc 33mr is uv-resistant and 
therefore intended for exterior use, henry's didn't have any local examples where a heavy rainscreen or cladding 
hadn't been additionally applied so we crossed our fingers. the final result has a beautiful texture, more like 
superfine sandpaper or grip tape than the expected rubber. the surface is seamless and easily concealed 
cracks, joints, and even framing ties. an added bonus is the blueskin flashing which allowed us to eliminate the 
metal flashing around the sliders we would have needed for a plaster finish, metal, or wood cladding.

P A I N T

the white rainbow.

P L A S T E R

the drywall reveal with the plaster coat. the smooth surface skim finish of the concrete floor will add another 
quarter inch to the floor so it sits flush with the bottom edge of the metal.