Instead of wearing the architectural equivalent of jeans and a t-shirt, these buildings treat their facades like high fashion to stand out from the crowd and make a visual statement. Artistic exterior treatments can give structures a bold makeover, offer multiple functions like built-in courtyards and benches, and engage with the city in ways that ordinary buildings simply don’t.

Mercado de Getafe by A-cero, Madrid, Spain

An ordinary brick building suddenly becomes extraordinary with the addition of a wrap-around facade by A-cero. The architects created a black envelope for the structure and added aluminum ribs and oversized lighting that protrudes to stick out over the sidewalk.

Hotel Cumbres Lastarria by Rodrigo Errazuriz, Santiago, Chile

The white facade of this hotel by Rodrigo Errazuriz wraps around the glazed front of the building, turning rectilinear windows into a pattern of abstract shapes.

Izumono Sakaba by Area Connection, Izumo City, Japan

Architecture firm Area Connection took inspiration from the traditional details on the Izumo Taisha Shrine for this wooden latticework affixed to the facade of a nearby restaurant.

Frankfurter Kunstverein by Joko Avian, Germany

It’s too bad this cloud-shaped woven bamboo facade installation by artist Joko Avianto was only temporary, as it adds a beautiful new dimension to the exterior of the Frankfurter Kunstverein art museum.

Hotel WZ Jardins by Estudio Guto Requena, Sao Paulo, Brazil

Exploring the concept of a ‘hacked city,’ the new facade of the Hotel WZ Jardins by Studio Guto Requena is covered in an ‘urban camouflage’ metal skin that lights up at night in interactive patterns, reacting in real time from sensors on the building that collect data on air quality. Passersby can also influence its patterns by logging onto a mobile app and using finger taps or voice commands.

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Fashionable Facades 15 Buildings That Put On An Artistic Face

The word ‘facade’ implies illusion, and that can be true even when it’s used to refer to the faces of buildings, as secondary structures wrap around them like veils, obscuring their true form and creating dazzling displays of light and shadow like a distracting sleight of hand. Some facades disguise the original building in a form of low-impact renovation, while others are kinetic, opening and closing or rippling in the wind.

Geometric Planter Facade

The exterior of the Firma Casa store in São Paulo, Brazil, which promotes young Brazilian furniture designers, gets an appropriately hip and modern look with the addition of a screen of geometric vases. 3,500 individual planters hold 9,000 seedlings and project slightly out from the exterior walls, keeping soil and water away from them for a relatively low-impact and low-budget green wall solution.

Roll-Up Facade Forms Canopy

Incredibly simple, yet unusual enough to stop you in your tracks on the street, this facade uses ordinary materials with an unexpected twist. Tokyo-based studio Ninkipen! made this contemporary white home stand out from its neighbors with a peeling facade that rolls up slightly from the ground level to create an awning for the garage.

Undulating Facade of Fins Looks Like Swimming Fish

The angled steel fins enveloping the Industrial Technology Research Institute at the Central Taiwan Innovation & Research Park is intended to recall the look of a school of fish swimming in synchronicity. Noiz Architects customized the opacity of the screen according to the function going on inside each particular area of the building, since some research areas, exhibition spaces, greenhouses, cafes and other programs require different degrees of sunlight. This veil-like screen is separate from the building itself, making for easy repairs and additions and occasionally stretching out to create indoor/outdoor spaces.

Kinetic Parking Garage Facade

118,000 suspended aluminum panels gently flap in the wind, creating textures reminiscent of flowing textiles and rippling water. Designed by artist Ned Kahn and fixed to the exterior of the Brisbane Airport parking garage in Australia, the kinetic facade reacts to its natural environment, constantly changing as it provides shade and ventilation for the interior.

Perforated Shutters on a Concrete Home

All street-facing and neighbor-visible windows on the ‘May Grove’ residence in Melbourne by Jackson Clements Burrows can be covered with perforated shutters integrated right into the facade, or opened when the inhabitants want a clear view. Not only do they control ventilation and privacy for this low-cost modern home, they create a play of light and shadow throughout the interior during the day.

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Not Just A Facade 15 Dynamic Modern Exterior Treatments

There’s something a little off about the highly recognizable logos splashed across this retail complex in the Chinese city of Wuxi: beside a round green & white approximation of the Starbucks logo, for example, green lettering spells out ‘SFFCCCKS OFFEE.’  Try saying that out loud. Zara has become ‘Zare’, and H&M is ‘H&N.’ These aren’t shops producing counterfeit versions of the goods offered by the real brands. They’re just facades. The entire building is actually vacant.

The shopping district has earned the name ‘Street of Fakes’ for these and many more fake high-end boutiques that look real from a distance, potentially luring in excited shoppers who approach an Apple store only to find that it’s ‘Appla,’ and the door is locked.

The signs were erected to appeal to potential property buyers, ostensibly by making the district feel more luxurious than it really is. There’s a good chance that some of the signs will have to come down, since they’re infringing on copyright laws. But in China, there really are counterfeit versions of all sorts of businesses that sell actual goods, like KFC ripoff ‘KLG.’

Property owners often get creative in their efforts to spruce up vacant shops. In North Tyenside, England, where more than 140 businesses closed up shop due to the flagging local economy, the council erected fake storefronts with murals that create an illusion of the real thing.

Sure, a brand name and an alluring product display in the window are enough to incite most people to step inside a store – but some retailers downright demand our attention with incredible storefronts that can’t be ignored. A chocolatier with a delightful Willy Wonka-worthy facade, a bike shop covered in (what else) bikes and a guitar shop that looks just like a Gibson amp are just a few of the clever and creative shops spotted around the world.

Gibson Amp Guitar Store

(image via: glen scott)

Not only does ‘The Guitar Store’ in Southampton, England look exactly like a guitar amp (especially when the security grate is down) – but the knobs go up to 11.

Diesel London Radio

(image via: electronic beats)

On a similar note (pun intended), there’s this solid gold old-school radio makeover at Italian clothing shop Diesel on London’s Carnaby Street. Electronic Beats Online says the plywood construction – made to promote their Diesel:U:Music 24-hour radio station – is a real radio, and all those dials on the front actually work.

Bike Shop Berlin

(image via: the mirror)

What to do to call attention to yourself when you’re trying to sell bikes out of a totally nondescript building? Business owner Christian Petersen got creative and mounted 120 bikes to the store’s facade, and there’s no longer any doubt what’s sold inside.

Louis Vuitton Topiary Facade

(image via: cube me)

Another bland building gets a very brand-centric makeover, but in a totally unexpected form. Gregory Polleta and Sung Jang created ‘Topiade’, a facade resembling French topiary in the form of the highly recognizable Louis Vuitton print.

Japanese Electronics Store

(image via: crunchgear)

Perhaps you can tell its age by just how huge the phone is compared to the hand, but nevertheless, this bold mural on the face of Japanese electronics chain Biccamera is definitely an attention-grabber.

Wavy Hair Salon Interface

(image via: dezeen)

Spare and modern, this simple wave design on the facade of Salon Mittermeier in Austria suggests an abstracted wave of human hair in its water jet-cut laminated sheets.

Fake Storefronts for Urban Revitalization

(images via: the daily mail)

Yes, that says ‘delicatessen’, but you won’t find any meat there. In fact, you won’t find anything at all – because it’s just a facade, put up to temporarily beautify a crumbling vacant storefront. The fake storefront experiment took place in Tyneside, England as a cheap way to make the depressed area more attractive to pedestrians and lure new businesses into town.

Kwik-E-Mart Makeover

(images via: james grimmelmann, xurble)

Simpsons fans got to step into real-life versions of Kwik-E-Mart when dozens of 7-11 stores across the U.S. got temporary makeovers to promote “The Simpsons Movie”, complete with character cut-outs, new signage and even real graffiti. Inside, the promotion got even more convincing with box upon box of KrustyO’s cereal, Buzz Cola and Homer’s favorite pink sprinkled donuts.

World’s Biggest Dior Bag

(image via: trendhunter)

A boring old plywood facade for a Dior store? Never! The luxury retailer settled for nothing less than an enormous cut-out of one of their iconic bags when their 57th street store in Manhattan was undergoing renovations.

La Cure Gourmande

(images via: brussels pictures)

What could this storefront signify other than a treasure trove of sugary delights that line the shelves inside? La Cure Gourmande kept the look of an antique chocolatier for its stores around France and Belgium, beckoning passersby to skip inside and gorge on every sweet imaginable.

Swarovski ‘Crystal Forest’ Storefront

(image via: selectism)

The light reflecting off the ‘crystal forest’ outside the Swarovski Flagship store in Ginza, Tokyo is almost blinding, and entirely fitting for a brand that produces some of the most sparkly products in the world. The facade is made from stainless steel mirrors, and the inside of the store is painted white to best highlight all the colorful little prisms of light they create.

Broken Apple Window

It may not scream ‘Apple’, but this window sticker is definitely an eye-catcher. And yes, there is a point to the whole ‘broken glass’ gag – it’s mean to show just how loud iPod HiFi can get.