Black Farmhouse

The total cost of the house was about $350,000, though the owners have since added a garage, outdoor bath and shower, and a yoga platform in the woods.

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.

Two Black Sheds incorporates all the conventional aspects of a weekend retreat in a rather unconventional way.

Torontonians Dan and Diane Molenaar head north to Drag Lake when they need a weekend away from urban life—though they brought some of the city with them. The mirrored windows that circle the cottage were recycled from two office towers in Toronto.

Carl Turner and Mary Martin pose on the porch of the Stealth Barn, a multipurpose structure that plays as a guest cottage, office space, and escape from whatever may be cooking at Ochre Barn.

Sævik compares her house to a contemplative hideout. “It’s very quiet,” she says. “You can concentrate and let thoughts fly.” Her favorite summer pastimes include reading, painting, drawing, yoga, and “just sitting and feeling the forest,” she says.

Since the front door is located in the exterior wall, residents first enter a vast garden before reaching the gable roof house.

Linden specified a black stain from Cabot for the house’s exterior. The shade draws on Scandinavian and Japanese building traditions and helps the structure blend into the landscape. Native grasses populate the courtyard.

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 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.

The Andersen Architectural Collection’s Eagle windows and doors provide the panes and passageways of the home.

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.”

“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.

The entry is hidden and only discoverable through a pathway that leads to a red sculpture. It's the only part of the palette that breaks the rules of the monochromatic cloaked facade.

The program is pushed to the property edges to screen adjacent neighbors and directs framed views to a large central courtyard.

Despite its relatively small footprint, House MM in north Amsterdam boasts significant internal volume. Chris Collaris Architects transformed a once-old-and-decaying brick house by using every inch of the allocation plan to the new home’s advantage—made possible by the clever mitigation of restricted roof heights. The outcome is an increase in volume that results in a spacious interior. Finished with protective wax-coated pinewood cladding in black, the home's exterior is clean lined and makes a bold statement standing out almost brazenly among its more mellow peers. This timber cladding yields only in precise areas for large windows throughout that invite light in and present delightful views, with full-height glazing that opens onto a terrace overlooking the gardens.

Architect Michelle Linden worked with Brothers to create a minimalist house. Inspired by the inward-looking approach of Cistercian abbeys, Linden oriented the U-shaped structure around a courtyard.

A Chilean home’s dramatic stained-pine exterior references local vernacular architecture.