Submitted by Kristi Wachter on
It's easy to spot the most familiar building materials - you can usually tell at a glance whether a wall is made of brick or wood or concrete. Often, what you see on the surface is cladding - an external layer of wood or brick or stone that hides the building's frame.
It's much harder to know what materials were used to create the structure of a building. The building's frame could be wood, brick, steel, or concrete.
Different structural materials have different advantages, such as strength, durability, or lower cost.
Different facade materials also have different attractions - in many cases, the decision has a lot to do with what will look best, but cost and resilience are important factors, too.
Here are some structural building materials:
- cast iron
- concrete
- load-bearing masonry
- steel
- wood
And here are some facade materials:
- brick
- clay tile
- concrete
- glass
- metal
- aluminum
- iron
- steel
- stone
- granite
- limestone
- marble
- sandstone
- stucco
- terra cotta