Naperville’s Terra-Cotta Experiment

When the staff and board members of the Naperville Public Library System, IL, were planning the construction of 95th Street Library in early 2002, they knew they wanted their third and largest facility to have a “high-tech, high-touch” feel and include a protective rain-screen wall application. Lead PSA-Dewberry designer Christopher Frye’s suggestion would have taken anyone by surprise: terra-cotta. “It has,” he explains, “the natural quality of brick and the 'engineered’ quality of something else, something new.”

Architectural terra-cotta has been used in Europe and Canada for some 25 years. But the United States has been slow to reembrace the material since it lost aesthetic favor around 1940, and today’s American architects largely prefer using metal or concrete. True, an increasing number of U.S. structures are being built or fitted with terra-cotta rain-screen systems—among them, a power company, a residence, even another library, the Kensington Branch of the Brooklyn Public Library. These systems allow air to enter at their base and exit at their top, ushering water from a building’s panel joints via a “draft effect.” With water redirected from the building’s surface, panel erosion is thus minimized over time. But the systems are still rare enough to pose hurdles to popular application, e.g., limited availability, higher costs, insufficient design and construction know-how, and hindered restoration and repair.

Their advantages, however—reduced energy consumption and running costs; an end to caulking, grout, and sealants; and long-term sustainability—should also be considered. As Frye explains, “The interior wall is completely sealed from the exterior environment, which in turn helps the mechanical systems work more efficiently than with conventional wall systems.”

Naperville PL was PSA-Dewberry’s first experience with terra-cotta rain-screen systems, so the architects crammed. They researched the material’s viability and the mechanics of rain-screen systems (also not a predominant feature of U.S. architecture). They called on product representatives from France and an expert from Canada. And they conducted extensive tile testing throughout.

They configured the two-story, 73,000 square foot building to take advantage of its views and surroundings (it is situated in a bustling residential/commercial area of Naperville), and they placed windows to maximize the interior/exterior relationships. They used glass and concrete, but terra-cotta was the primary exterior material. Naperville executive director Donna Dziedzic and associates settled on a warm shade of single-skin cladding product for its lightness and durability. Frye prices the terra-cotta tiles they used as slightly more expensive than brick—about $38 to $30 per square foot—while Dziedzic calculates the total terra-cotta cost to the library at $268,844.

The tiles have been up since August 2003, and though Dziedzic says cleaning is a nonissue, she has encountered a few bumps in the road, namely, breakability (from rocks, BB-gun pellets, a garbage truck), leaks (where the barrier transitions into the flashing for the building façade—an installation issue), and future repair. Dziedzic says the terra-cotta tiles are easy to cut and remove, but “if a tile or two were marked with graffiti, they would likely need to be replaced.” Also, color matching could prove difficult “owing to variations in the matrix and fading or color change in the mounted tiles.” And, because the product is still somewhat new to today’s users, order fulfillment could take some time (good, then, that the library’s large minimum order left them with 140 tiles as attic stock).

Dziedzic is the first to say the building’s moisture seal is holding up well, and, aesthetically, she couldn’t be happier. “Usually, even as a nontraditionally designed building is under construction, you expect to get comments from the community, including complaints or negative statements about the design,” she says. “From construction to date, what I hear from the public is how much they like 95th Street overall, design and services.”

PSA-Dewberry is exploring future terra-cotta rain-screen projects—e.g., with the University of Illinois–Chicago’s molecular research facility; with the Champaign, IL, YMCA—but at this stage Naperville has been one of the first U.S. libraries to bite. As to the long-term results and the future of terra-cotta use in general, only time, that great measure of exteriors, will tell. Until then, Dziedzic is happy with her “pretty, modern, and special library.” And she doesn’t mind the terra-cotta’s ten-year warranty, either.