Located adjacent to Dona Bay on Florida’s Gulf Coast, Black Barn is a purpose-built live/work structure that reinterprets the industrial warehouse.
The building integrates a 5,000-square-foot workshop with a 3,500-square-foot residence. The structure presents as a singular black metal volume, its gabled form recalling vernacular barn architecture while embracing the language of steel and industrial fabrication.
“We approached the project as a challenge—how to take a raw, utilitarian building type and elevate it without disguising its industrial character. The goal wasn’t to soften or hide what it was, but to work with its honesty and find a kind of quiet beauty in its simplicity and structure.”
Inside, the residential program is organized lengthwise along a clear sectional strategy: one half of the volume is spread across a double-height public space – comprising of living, dining, and kitchen – that opens to the bay through a continuous band of glazing, while the other half is efficiently packed with the private program across two levels.
“Interior finishes are restrained yet warm, drawing on wood and other tactile materials to offset the rigor of the steel structure.”
