30 All-Black Exterior Modern Homes
Here's a collection of various modern homes we chose for their use of black siding; whether it be wood, steel, or another material.
"From the street, it appears as a rectangular building with sloping shed roofs, but this is actually an illusion," Hutchison notes. "The floor plan is actually U-shaped, wrapping around an entry courtyard that is contained by the continuous west facade." A standing seam metal roof by Custom Bilt Metals blends in with the cedar siding.
Since Copenhagen is generally cold, the house was painted black to trap warmth. The result was that in its first year, it consumed so little energy that the client received a generous refund from the heating company. "Many wooden houses in Scandinavia use this trick," Larsen says. "On sunny days it even radiates warmth, so that in spring and autumn you can sit outside by the wall and in this way extend the outdoor season by a few weeks every year. These weeks are valuable in places with little light."
The modern addition sits on a concrete platform that extends past the house’s envelope, creating welcoming patios on each side. "From any space within the home you are no more than a few steps from one of the outdoor spaces," Busick says. On the west-facing back porch, Green Kite Chairs by Karim Rashid and a poppy-red hammock offer ideal spots from which to take in the sunset.
In Scandinavian regions, traditional cabins are painted black using a mixture of tar and linseed oil. Peck reproduced the look using corrugated metal—a lower-maintenance, more sustainable material. "We love that it is black, because it really reminds us of home," Bronee says. The house has no windows on its front side, belying its light-flooded interior.
"The cedar siding is simply stained with a black semi-transparent oil stain [from Cabot], which allows the color of the wood to still emerge through," architect Robert Hutchison says. "We love how the black color makes the building recede into the background, and how it in turn allows the trees on the site to emerge as the highlight."
Courtyard House, Location: Somers Victoria Australia, Architect: Rowan Opat .Evolving from the notion of a series of outbuildings on a greenfi eld site, principles of passive solar design have informed this courtyard house. The northern eaves respond directly to shading becoming shallower in proportion to the depth of space as experienced in the square plan. As the dominant designed area, on this hectare site, the courtyard both surrounds and is surrounded by the house, creating a contained space within an otherwise semi-rural block.
Storey calls this house the "Eel’s Nest," after the narrow urban properties that go by that name in Japan. Its façade was originally going to be wood, but because of local building codes and the fact the building is built along the edge of the property line, the exterior had to be fireproof. Storey covered it with stucco instead. "I wanted it to look as rough as possible," says the architect. "Since it’s such a small house, it needed to be tough-looking."
The workshop at ground level measures less than 200 square feet, but is set up to accommodate any kind of woodworking or welding; when not in use, the architect parks his car inside.
"Sustainability is very important to us," lead architect Heather Dubbeldam says. "It is easy to design with passive systems, to use passive sustainable principles to influence the design and layout of the house." Her team reduced the need for air conditioning and artificial lighting through carefully positioned doors and windows that draw in natural light and breeze. New insulation, low-flow plumbing fixtures, and low-energy lighting also minimize the homeowners’ dependence on utilities.
Though traditionally, three Japanese cedar boards are bound to form a long triangle and a fire is started within the resulting tunnel, Weijnen built a brick oven to accommodate two six-foot-long larch wood boards at a time when he charred his wood in Amsterdam. After removing the planks from the brick oven, Weijnen doused them with water if the fires didn't go out on their own. He used his less successful pieces in the kitchen ceiling.
The exterior of the Housemuseum has something of s Farth Vader look to it, without directly mimicking the brutalism that exemplified much of Melbourne’s modernist architecture of the 1960s. The street names that form the corner on which it sits—Cotham and Florence—are marked out in the chocolate-brown brickwork fence.
The house is divided into three sections connected by a series of outdoor galleries. "When I walk from one room to another, I have to go outdoors and feel the weather and nature—rain, cold, and sun," says Sævik.
Instead of emphasizing the expansive panorama of oak, pine, and aspen trees, the house frames select views—a move inspired by Japanese design.
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