Orange, Black, and Modern All Over: These Homes Will Get You in the Halloween Spirit

This eye-catching villa in the Netherlands, designed by Next Architects, proves that you can go big and go home as well. While some homes feature hints of color, the Villa van Vijven structure garners well-deserved attention thanks to its warm orange facade that is meant to mimic the tiled rooftops of Holland’s country buildings. The orange of the exterior also carries over into the communal entrance beneath the building, offset by natural elements such as stones adjacent to the entryway.

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.”

Bright orange and cobalt-blue surfaces dominate the minimalist kitchen.

In February of 2007, two San Francisco art and travel addicts purchased a 3,200-square-foot former Chinese laundry and tooth-powder factory with column-free interiors and a zigzagging sawtooth roof in lower Pacific Heights. They customized a pair of shipping containers to accommodate their collection and reflect their passions, and hired a local company to sandblast the interior to expose the board-formed concrete walls and replace the carpeted floors with Georgia hickory pecan planks to further lengthen the loft and make it look more like a warehouse.

The owners’ goal was to transform the 19th-century building into a bold single-family residence. Historical architectural details were made modern with a striking black facade, while inside, a flexible living space that opens into an exterior garden enables a simplified lifestyle.

A bright-orange polyurethane coating rescues the dugout from any suggestion of darkness or dinginess.

An orange chair and cream ottoman of Risom's design.

Two hours north of New York City, an unusual barn emerges from a hill just off a country road. Its black siding and bright-red window frames hint at the imaginative playground inside. This space, with its rope-railed catwalk and indoor tent, is just one element of the multifaceted getaway architecture and design firm BarlisWedlick Architects designed for fund manager Ian Hague.

Homeowner Simon Doonan stands next to the front door. "We have flamboyance, and we’re not inhibited about anything. [Architect] Gray Organschi gave [the house] that intellectual rigor needed to make it beautiful. We were well matched."

Terunobu Fujimori's Charred Cedar House, completed in 2007, is clad in charred cedar boards, which have been treated with an ancient Japanese technique that seals the wood against rain and rot. Read our profile on the Japanese architect. Photo by Adam Friedberg.

In the shadow of Denali mountain, amid Alaska’s meadows and icy streams, a former teacher and a four-time Iditarod winner calls upon Mayer Sattler-Smith to design a modernist cabin as expansive as the Last Frontier.

Architect Bill Ryall installed vertical circulation elements, opened an unobstructed 47-foot-long view from front to back, and kept the ceiling beams exposed to create a loft-like environment.

A gently winding set of exposed aggregate concrete pads leads to the Wabi House’s front door. Mariscal sought to “hide the house behind a dense forest front yard.” As the crape myrtles grow in, they will further filter the home’s facade.

The kids’ room of the Milford Residence in Portland, Oregon is outfitted with a cheerful orange Case Study daybed from Modernica and a selection of vintage maps and artwork.

Using prefabricated elements, Bas van Bolderen Architectuur and Studio Puisto Architects were able to complete the dwelling in just eight months so the couple’s lives could return to normal. Wall elements were constructed in Germany, then transported to the Netherlands, where the house was erected in just one week.

Webber + Studio went with a bold, orange hue for these kitchen countertops. Past the front door and a short hallway lies an expansive living, dining, and kitchen space.

“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.

In this custom-built London guesthouse kitchen designed by Studiomama, lustrous vertically clad cabinetry achieves additional depth with the addition of the chairs, which were picked up for $15 each at a local market and powder coated in bright orange.

The slightly below-ground kitchen sits inside a boxy extension, clad in recycled timber and stained kettle black. A wildflower garden grows on its pitched roof.