Black U

Budapest, Hungary

Architects: T2.a Architects

Any: 2006

The last house in the street stands in snug proximity to the woods on the edge of the suburbs. It is black and U-shaped – hence the name given by its owner: Black U. We gently placed the U-shaped block on the plot and with one slanted slash removed its top part. We covered the roof with graphite grey, almost black zinc sheets and masked the walls with bricks. At places the zinc sheets flow down onto the walls to replace the bricks, thus forming an armour-like, scaly surface. The bricks were made in Denmark; their colour is a mix between deep black and grizzly-brown. Their texture resembles five-million year old fossilized tree-trunks but they also conjure images of kneaded dough. The mortar used for the joints between the bricks was mixed with a rugged, dark grey substance and the then scrubbed flush with the wall. The building lies low and has an introverted character but it also offers glimpses of the woods. To the outside visitor it may look like a single-storey structure, while on the inside it actually has two and three storeys. Throughout its interior spaces you are conscious of signs of the U-shaped geometry of the exterior and the slanted plane of the roof is visible. The U-shape embraces a Japanese garden and the lowermost storey is lodged in a crateriform rock garden.