3900 ADELINE: VERSATILE TRIM CREATES MODERN LOOK WITHOUT BLOWING THE BUDGET

An off-the-shelf trim gives a mixed-used development in Emeryville, California, a sleek, custom aesthetic.

Like a lot of projects that were shelved during the housing crash, the mixed-used development called 3900 Adeline in Emeryville, California, had some trouble getting restarted when it was resurrected in 2010. Located in a transitioning industrial neighborhood, the project called for an existing one-story light industrial building to be replaced with 101 for-rent residential and live/work units as well as 1,000 square feet of retail space—if the architects could make the budget work.

“It was right when people were emerging from the crisis, but banks were still nervous about rental properties,” says Toby Levy, FAIA, principal at Levy Design Partners, which designed the project. “Since it wasn’t a premier location, it was very scrutinized.”

So Levy had to make some tough decisions. Rather than the extensive use of metal siding she had planned, she had to go with more budget-friendly cement fiberboard. But she was still determined to maintain the clean, modern lines she originally envisioned, saying, “Once you make the decision to use mostly cement fiber, the questions are, how do you make it look a little different, and how do you do it to scale?”

Levy found answers to both questions in extruded aluminum trim. “You’re always looking for inventive ways to create interest and scale while not blowing the budget,” she says. “In this case, it did all those things.”

Part of the reason the trim worked so well was that it came in a wide variety of shapes and sizes to fit with the cement panel’s varied range of thicknesses. “We were pleased to find there were some unusual trim pieces as well as regular trim pieces that worked with it,” Levy says. “This was not a project where we could have invented our own. It had to be off the shelf.”

Levy relied most on 4-inch trim pieces. She placed those between the 2-foot-wide cement fiberboards to add interest and break up the siding. Then she used corner V trim pieces to give the edges a thoroughly modern square edge.

“You would have the trim piece anyhow and we got an extra bit of look with that same piece,” she says. “That’s the name of the game—making these inherently flat-looking cement panels have more interest.”

Getting all the trim from the same manufacturer also helped keep costs—and construction problems—low. “There’s nothing worse than getting one piece of trim from one place and another from somewhere else,” she says. “You don’t know whether they’ll take paint the same, bend the same, or work the same.”

Now that Levy knows herself how well the trim works, she plans to keep it in her architectural bag of budget tricks. “It did what it said it was supposed to do, and it performed like we expected it to perform,” she says. “It gave more scale. It gave more interest. And it was a very inexpensive way to do it.”

Working with Manufacturers

In an ideal world, the manufacturer of water management systems and/or architecturally interesting trim and reveal pieces will have the staff and resources available to help design the building envelope for ultimate form and function. When a manufacturer has thousands of design and color options, this allows architects and users to dramatically improve their building aesthetics and create modern architectural lines preferred by millennials and others in today’s market. But without knowledgeable assistance, specifying the best products or combination of products can be a daunting task.

A manufacturer may have its own team of architects in-house to aid and assist the process of selecting and assuring the correct profile for the specific application or desired aesthetic effect. Depending on the size and flexibility of the manufacturer, it may also have the ability and materials to provide appropriate non-extruded fabrication from sheet stock of almost any shape or profile that may be needed on a project.

For best results, an architect should rely heavily on the knowledge and expertise of the manufacturer chosen for the project.

Conclusion

There is growing recognition among building scientists and codes that walls need to drain, and, going forward, housewraps will increasingly be judged by how effectively they provide positive drainage of water from the wall. Specifying a drainable housewrap provides an extra insurance that moisture that finds its way behind the cladding can easily find its way out.

At the same time, sophisticated products and processes that create a wall assembly increasingly capable of drying out and preventing moisture damage to the envelope and building open the door to new types of trim and reveals that can be considered for multifamily housing projects. New profiles of extruded aluminum trim products have made it possible to aesthetically trim almost any type of siding panel or plank product with a wide range of depth options. And they may be available in choices of primed, clear anodized, specialty anodized, or color matched to satisfy whatever the project requires.

With a superior drainage plane and aesthetically dynamic trim and reveal products, multifamily housing projects can achieve the ultimate dream of architects, designers, and specifiers: a perfect blend of form and function.

Kathy Price-Robinson writes about building and design. Her remodeling series “Pardon Our Dust” ran 12 years in the Los Angeles Times. She specializes in writing about buildings that are durable and resilient to climate disruptions, as well as products and designs that provide shade in hot climates. www.kathyprice.com

End Notes

¹“Growth in Urban Population Outpaces Rest of Nation, Census Bureau Reports.” Newsroom. United States Census Bureau. 28 March 2012. Web. 7 April 2019.

²Dure, Beau. “Millennials Continue Urbanization of America, Leaving Small Towns.” National Public Radio. 21 October 2014. Web. 7 April 2019.

³Pack, Andrew A. “Increasing Density: A Small-Town Approach to New Urbanism.” Bridges. Fall 2013. Web. 7 April 2019.

⁴“CityScape at Belmar.” Studio Completiva. Web. 7 April 2019.

⁵“Ryman Lofts.” Smith Gee Studio. Web. 7 April 2019.

⁶“17 Walnut.” Studio Architecture. Web. 7 April 2019.

⁷“Cortona at Forest Park.” Humphreys & Partners Architects. Web. 7 April 2019.

⁸“Syracuse Plaza and Goldsmith Village.” Milender White. Web. 7 April 2019.