Built & Applied

Custom Shutters — Tuinen van West

Custom shutters for a Japanese-inspired motel at Tuinen van West — where a request for plain wooden panels became an argument for milled, patterned Tricoya, drawn from sand gardens and basketry.

Year: 2018–2019
Role: Designer
Office: Sustainer Homes
Domain: Facade · Parametric Design

A missed opportunity, taken back

The task was custom shutters for the Tuinen van West project, a motel inspired by traditional Japanese architecture. The request was for straightforward detailing in wooden panels — we normally avoid milled wood outdoors, because milling breaks the protective coating and the material won't last.

But for a project with that strong an identity, plain panels felt like a missed opportunity. After some research I found Tricoya, a high-tech treated wood that can be milled and still survive external use — which reopened the door to pattern, and to designs tailored to the building rather than pulled off a shelf.

A hand holding a milled Tricoya shutter panel with an intricate perforated pattern, casting a patterned shadow — Milled Tricoya — durable enough for outdoors, and finally able to hold a pattern.

Patterns from the garden

The first family of panels takes the wavy raked lines of sand Zen gardens and translates them into flowing milled louvers — a pattern that reads as calm horizontal movement across the facade.

A raked-sand Zen garden with a stone beside a shutter panel milled with matching flowing wavy lines — Raked sand, translated into a milled panel.

Patterns from the weave

The second draws on kagome, the hexagonal weave of traditional Japanese basketry — an interlocking geometry that becomes a fine perforated screen when cut into the panel.

Woven kagome basketry beside a shutter panel milled with the matching hexagonal perforated pattern — Kagome basketry beside its milled counterpart.

Made to move

Beyond the surface, the work was in the mechanisms: detailing sliding, rotating and foldable movement systems for the shutters, and coordinating with several companies to source the best custom hinges and accessories — so the panels stay functional, not just decorative. The louvers themselves run as an extension of the facade's finish line.

Three tall shutter panels shown with their louvered patterns and movement systems — The louver panels and their movement systems — sliding, rotating, folding.

Next project

V5++

→