The Trending Look That Has Home Designers Playing With Fire
This centuries-old Japanese technique is adding a surprisingly contemporary vibe to luxury homes, inside and out
This centuries-old Japanese technique is adding a surprisingly contemporary vibe to luxury homes, inside and out
It’s the kind of edgy design trend you might have scrolled past on a social media feed: homes bearing beautifully charred facades or feature walls, a charcoal patina that seems as if it emerged from fire itself—in fact, that’s exactly how it came into being.
Shou sugi ban, also known as yakisugi, is a Japanese wood-burning method with roots that run deep. The craft emerged during Japan’s Edo period, from 1603 to 1868, as a way to clad cedar buildings to withstand temperature fluctuations between seasons and render them fire retardant and insect repellant. Aside from its practical benefits, the look has exploded in the West as a way to give homes—mostly luxury ones—a brooding, dramatic exterior that fits with an earthy minimalist aesthetic as much as texture-rich maximalist one.
The preservation technique, which can be achieved by hand or machine, involves burning wood until the surface is charred, cooling and cleaning it to remove soot and dust and finishing it with natural oils to reinforce its durability and aesthetic appeal.
Dark and charred and decidedly grained, the look of shou sugi ban is altogether distinctive.
“When you burn the clean wood, it creates a textural surface that highlights the beauty of the wood grain and colour,” said Mia Jung, director of interiors at Ike Kligerman Barkley in New York and San Francisco.
Depending on the degree of charring and finishing, the wood can produce a range of looks from deep black with pronounced grain patterns to a more subtle dark brown or grey with a smoother finish, said Jiun Ho, founder of Jiun Ho Inc., a multi-disciplinary interior and furnishings design firm in San Francisco.
Defining Detail
Unlike the purely functional role of the shou sugi ban technique of the past, today, it’s most commonly used for decorative purposes—both inside and outside the home.
“It has a modern yet earthy aesthetic,” said Stephanie Hobbs, design principal at Marmol Radziner in Los Angeles. “Clean lines and details help this naturally textured and rough material feel modern and luxurious.”
The old-world application can, ironically, have a very contemporary vibe. “The simplicity of the wood offers a beautiful and natural look that honours the Japanese aesthetic of wabi-sabi, which embraces imperfections,” said Teresa Boyd and Helena Finkelstein, co-owners and lead designers of Verona, New Jersey-based Olive Hill Design Company.
While traditionally rendered in cedar, modern variations of the art utilise different types of woods, such as Douglas fir, cypress, pine or oak, creating many diverse looks. The cost of shou sugi ban varies widely based on factors such as the type of wood used, the degree of charring and the finish applied.
“It can be more expensive than untreated wood due to the labor-intensive process,” Ho said. Typically, prices range from $15 to$20 per square foot on average.
What’s Old Is New Again
There’s no denying the technique is having a moment, and it aligns with so many other trends, such as the growing emphasis on artisan-made things as well as biophilic design, a concept that aims to connect people with nature, in part, through natural materials.
“In this age of fast everything, there is a growing respect and appreciation for traditional craftsmanship,” Kornak said. “Shou sugi ban is a great example of that—it has a rich and beautiful history, especially in architecture and design. In addition, it’s both modern and rustic, which is aesthetically intriguing.”
The matte finish and distinctive wood graining create a striking impression that is different from what people are used to seeing, Hobbs said, noting how it balances with a natural landscape.
“People love the warmth and natural qualities of wood siding, but it often comes with a large commitment to maintenance. This method of finishing ages naturally and beautifully over time and requires less maintenance than a typical wood siding application,” she said.
What makes shou sugi ban even more relevant is that it’s eco-friendly. The wood retains the carbon-dioxide absorbed during the tree’s growth, making it more durable and expanding the life of the wood, said Philip Consalvo, principal of PJCArchitecture in New York City. It also naturally protects the wood from the elements, eliminating the need for harsh chemicals.
“As darker home exteriors continue to trend, we will likely see this material becoming increasingly popular for cladding,” he said.
Fresh Ways to Play With Fire
These days, shou sugi ban, in all of its smoky glory, is showcased in a multitude of ways—as siding and fencing, decking, interior and feature walls and furniture.
Ho loves using shou sugi ban for wall cladding because “it adds a multi-dimensional texture making the interior feel rich and warm.” For a new restaurant he’s designing called Enclos, which is opening later this summer in Sonoma, California, he covered the dining room’s walls and ceiling with shou sugi ban. “This created a dark black texture that serves as a blank canvas, allowing everything in the room, including the guests and the food, to stand out,” he said.
Jeffrey Dungan, founder and creative director at Jeffrey Dungan Architects in Mountain Brook, Alabama, prefers to apply the technique inside a home for a dark and moody vibe. While Hobbs tends to add the charred wood as a finishing material to connect interior walls with exterior siding.
Siding is the most common way to showcase the Japanese technique. Consalvo used the material as siding because of its “eco-friendly nature and seamless integration with the home’s natural surroundings,” for a recently completed lake house in the Adirondacks.
“The unique appearance of shou sugi ban enhanced the modern aesthetic we desired for the house. By incorporating this traditional craftsmanship in a modern way, we aimed to honour the Japanese wood preservation technique,” he said.
However, Consalvo noted that since the charring process is unfamiliar to many builders and contractors, “proper training and understanding of the technique are essential to achieving the desired results and maintaining its integrity and benefits.”
Aside from walls and siding, Shou Sugi Ban can be used to fashion bespoke items such as furniture, light fixtures or objets d’art. Design firm Holly Hunt has used geometric figurines by Martha Sturdy called “Reflections” as well as hand-carved solid cedar bowls from A Space.
“For both of these, the ashen black finish and minimalist lines are a graceful yet robust accent for interiors,” said Jo Annah Kornak, senior vice president and executive creative director of Chicago-based Holly Hunt.
Homeowners who are curious about the look but don’t want to commit to decorating large expanses can add a small side table or console crafted with the shou sugi ban technique for a natural and minimalist addition to their décor, Boyd and Finkelstein suggested.
This stylish family home combines a classic palette and finishes with a flexible floorplan
Just 55 minutes from Sydney, make this your creative getaway located in the majestic Hawkesbury region.
The Republican nominee says it would help bring down home prices, though these buyers account for a fraction of U.S. home sales
Former President Donald Trump said he would ban undocumented immigrants from obtaining home mortgages, a move he indicated would help ease home prices even though these buyers account for a tiny fraction of U.S. home sales.
Home loans to undocumented people living in the U.S. are legal but they aren’t especially common. Between 5,000 and 6,000 mortgages of this kind were issued last year, according to estimates from researchers at the Urban Institute in Washington.
Overall, lenders issued more than 3.4 million mortgages to all home purchasers in 2023, federal government data show.
Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, made his comments Thursday during a policy speech to the Economic Club of New York in Manhattan.
Housing remains a top economic issue for voters during this presidential election. Rent and home prices grew at historic rates during the pandemic and mortgage rates climbed to levels not seen in more than two decades. A July Wall Street Journal poll showed that voters rank housing as their second-biggest inflation concern after groceries.
Both major candidates for the 2024 presidential election have made appeals to voters on housing during recent campaign stops, though the issue has so far featured more prominently in Vice President Kamala Harris ’s campaign.
Trump has blamed immigrants for many of the nation’s woes, including crime and unemployment. Now, he is pointing to immigrants as a cause of the nation’s housing-affordability crisis. Yet some affordable-housing advocates and real-estate professionals said Trump’s mortgage proposal would fail to bring relief to priced-out home buyers.
“It’s unfortunate that given the significant housing affordability crisis that is widely acknowledged across most partisan lines, we are arguing about a minuscule segment of the market,” said David Dworkin, president of the National Housing Conference, an affordable-housing advocacy group.
Gary Acosta, chief executive of the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals, a trade organization, said, “It’s just another effort to vilify immigrants and to continue to scapegoat them for any issues that we have here in the United States.”
A Trump campaign spokeswoman didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Undocumented immigrants in the U.S. can obtain an obscure type of mortgage designed for taxpayers without Social Security numbers, most of whom are Hispanic. The passage of the USA Patriot Act of 2001 allowed banks to use identification numbers from the Internal Revenue Service as an alternative to Social Security, extending a number of financial services to people without legal status for the first time.
Mortgage loans for undocumented immigrants are typically higher interest and borrowers include legal residents who have undocumented spouses, Acosta said. Lenders include regional credit unions and community-development financial institutions.
In his speech, Trump said that “the flood” of undocumented immigrants is driving up housing costs. “That’s why my plan will ban mortgages for illegal aliens,” he said.
Trump didn’t elaborate on how he would enact a ban on such loans.
Though mortgages for undocumented people living in the U.S. are relatively rare, residential real-estate purchases by foreign nationals are big business , especially in expensive coastal cities such as New York and Los Angeles. These sales have declined in recent years, however.
Close to half of foreign purchases are made by people residing abroad, while the other half are made by recent immigrants or residents on nonimmigrant visas, according to an annual survey by the National Association of Realtors. Many affluent foreigners buy U.S. homes with cash instead of obtaining mortgage financing.
In his Thursday speech, which focused mostly on other economic matters such as energy and taxation, Trump proposed other measures to bring down housing costs, including cutting regulations for builders and allowing more building on federal land. Similar ideas appeared in the housing policy outline Harris released in August .
The former president has spoken on housing-related issues in speeches at other recent campaign stops, including in Michigan last month, where he touted his administration’s 2020 overturn of a policy that had encouraged cities to reduce racial segregation .
“I keep the suburbs safe,” Trump said. “I stopped low-income towers from rising right alongside of their house. And I’m keeping the illegal aliens away from the suburbs.”
This stylish family home combines a classic palette and finishes with a flexible floorplan
Just 55 minutes from Sydney, make this your creative getaway located in the majestic Hawkesbury region.