‘Hampton Style’ is a popular architectural style in Australia, chosen for its beauty and simplicity. Pictorial references online will reveal the gentleness of traditional timber look shiplap and chamfered weatherboards, and the nostalgic white window architraves of a bygone era – elements that are missing in modern brick and tile constructions.

The Hampton Style is inspired by the manicured suburbs of North American cities where most home exteriors are constructed using uPVC products such as Royal Select vinyl weatherboards from Royal Building Products, North America’s leading manufacturers of uPVC weatherboards.

Another visual component unique to the Hampton Style is the prevalence of grey tones in the colour scheme – Blue Greys, Green Greys, Brown Greys, Soft Greys, Bold Greys, just about every grey imaginable, juxtaposed against bold white vertical and horizontal trimmings.

Austech External Building Products is the national distributor of Royal Building Products in Australia. Austech offers a broad colour palette for these vinyl weatherboards, currently stocking 14 colours with the option to supply more colours against special orders.

Austech has recently added ‘Harvard Slate’ to their stock colour palette. Harvard Slate is best described as a rich, bold and versatile grey that is very popular in the US market. Many ‘Hampton Style’ homes in the US, in fact, feature Harvard Slate.

Harvard Slate is available in Duratuff Select (Chamfered), Duratech (Shiplap) and Vertical (Soffit) profiled vinyl weatherboards. Manufactured to Australian Standard 4256.4, the Austech cladding product range is virtually maintenance-free and has a market-leading product lifecycle. The vinyl weatherboards are tested against all weather conditions and carry an unbeatable manufacturer’s warranty.

The low maintenance insulated uPVC weatherboard range from Austech does not require any painting, delivering a clear advantage in any cost-benefit analysis of building materials. Recommended for new builds, Austech insulated vinyl weatherboards are also exceptionally versatile as a retrofit product as they can be directly fixed easily and quickly over existing fibre cement sheeting or timber weatherboards, helping change the style, colour and appearance of the home in a matter of days.

Austech also offers Hampton Style designer window trims for existing aluminium windows. These specially developed architraves are installed before the weatherboards, which insert behind the face of the 60mm cavity of the trim, achieving a neat and bold, pure white, contrasting window frame that requires no painting or maintenance and lasts for years.

Image: A Hampton Style home in Harvard Slate