Black h

Harlosh is a scatter of crofts on a small peninsula on the west coast of the Isle of Skye, looking out over Loch Bracadale to the flat-topped hills the locals call MacLeod's Tables and, beyond them, the open Atlantic. This is the wet, dramatic, Gaelic side of the Highlands, where the weather crosses the water in minutes and the light is never the same hour to hour. The Cuillin, Skye's serrated mountain range, rises to the south. In summer the evenings barely darken; in winter the snow comes down to the shore and the Northern Lights sometimes show over the sea.

Black h is a modern blackhouse, the architects' reworking of the taigh-dubh, the long, low, thick-walled dwelling that has stood on these islands for centuries. Dualchas, a Highland practice based on Skye and in Glasgow and named Scottish Architectural Practice of the Year in 2025, clad it in dark timber and set it side-on to the wind, low against the croft. Inside, it opens up: a split-level space for two, lined and warmed with oak, with a wood fire and windows placed to frame the mountains and the sea rather than the road. It was built to take the worst of the weather and make a quiet, bright room out of it.