Black House

The house stands 60 metres back from the road, behind a screen of beech. From the gate it is a dark mass with a few lit openings, and that is how the clients wanted it. The boards are pine, sprayed black with a mineral stain that does not shine.

The porch is the one gesture. It is 2.4 metres deep, glazed on the front and used as a boot room, a plant room and in the evening as the place to sit.

Past the porch the house is white and pale oak. The walls are lime plaster, the floor is oak boards laid in 4-metre lengths, and the ceiling is boarded in pine so that the room has a warm lid. Nothing is painted a bright colour except the kitchen.

The living room, the table and the kitchen share one volume. A wall of three sliding doors opens it onto a deck on the wood side, and in summer the room stops at the trees.

Above the bedrooms is a loft for guests, reached by a ladder stair. It has two beds, a window at each gable and nothing else. When the house is empty it is closed, and the heating to it is turned off.

The plot was a clearing with a few young birches. We moved no tree larger than a man’s wrist. The beech wood was thinned by the owners the following winter, with a forester, and the felled trunks were sawn for the porch benches.