Hasta La Ideas

Japanese architect Takato Tamagami used the golden spiral of the Fibonacci mathematical sequence to plan the twisted proportions of this house in Hokkaido, Japan (+ slideshow).

The house is named Northern Nautilus as a reference to this spiral shape and is positioned on the side of a hill overlooking a park to the north.

“We imagined that if we made the house high enough, they will have a nice view towards the park and the panorama of the town on the hill,” said Takato Tamagami.

The volume of the house comprises two overlapping blocks, with one running parallel to the street and the other rotated through 30 degrees. Floor levels are different in each block and create a series of split levels.

“We created a dynamic spiral flow of circulation and form,” added the architect. “Light and view transform in multiple ways as you move up and down the space.”

A dining room and kitchen are located at the very top of the house and feature a double-height window with a view out over the park.

Two staircases lead down from this room to a mezzanine floor in the middle of the house. One winds down into a living room, while the other descends into a private, window-less study that is used by the client’s wife.

One bedroom is slotted into the corner of this storey, plus two more are located on the ground floor below.

The split levels of the house create a large storage area between the floors in the centre of the house. A parking garage is also integrated into the volume, with a shelf above for storing a canoe.

Tokyo-based architect Takato Tamagami launched his studio in 2002. Past projects include N-House, which comprises two homes tangled around each other, and a showroom with a curving chasm for an entrance.

See more houses in Japan »

Here’s a project description from Takato Tamagami:

Northern Nautilus

This house for a young couple stands on a lot in a readjusted land on a hill. The site faces a street on the north, and is surrounded by neighboring houses on the other three sides. It seemed like a rather commonplace urban condition at first, but we were excited to discover a good view of a park below, located across the street towards northeast direction. We imagined that if we made the house high enough, they will have a nice view towards the park and the panorama of the town on the hill, and enjoy seasonal changes of trees from there. So our design started from providing a large window towards the park view on top floor.

The building consists of interlocking volumes of cuboid located parallel to the site and cube rotated by 30 degrees to face the park. Plan of the cuboid is based on golden proportion and spatial division is determined by logarithmic spiral. By giving order to spatial proportion and composition, one can provide a sense of stability and comfort in living environment. This is a classical design method that had been adapted by many architects in the past.

We added a new step to this method that is extracting the square and rotating it. As a result we created a dynamic spiral flow of circulation and form. Light and view transform in multiple ways as you move up and down the space.

Each volume has floor on different level and each floor is allocated for specific use, and the floors step up continually and extend outwards. The gap between mezzanine ceiling and top floor is used as storage space.

Garage is placed in a part of rotated cube and the ceiling is made high enough to accommodate a canoe, as the client loves outdoor sports. And we made storage space above the garage so that they can load and unload outdoor sport goods directly from the car.

Each space has different ceiling height. Entrance hall has a 6.6 meter-high void space and as you go up ceiling height of each living space gets lower. Living room on the mezzanine level is 3.9 meters high and dining room on the second floor is compressed to 2.2 meters high. Here the sense of horizontality is emphasized to enhance visual experience. As you approach the full-width window a bright panoramic view of trees and surrounding townscape opens up dramatically.

Study/book storage is located in that middle on the mezzanine level, which is used as private room of the client’s wife. It is visually inaccessible from the rest of the house, except that it is visually connected to the double-height bedroom so the couple can feel each other’s presence while maintaining some privacy. She can go down there from the second floor using stairs located behind the kitchen, so it is easy take a break from housekeeping and enjoy her free time.

By splitting floor levels we were able to separate living spaces while maintaining a sense of togetherness at the same time.

Above: concept diagram

The couple stands by the dining room window and sees neighborhood children playing cheerfully in the park. When they have a child on their own he/she will eventually join there. From this window they will keep an eye on growth of all children and their hometown.

Above: ground floor plan

Above: middle floor plan

Above: top floor plan

Above: section

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Takato Tamagami appeared first on Dezeen.

A concrete wall supports the weight of this elevated house in southern Japan that points out like a giant rectangular telescope (+ slideshow).

Designed by Japanese studio mA-style architects, the house is located on the side of a hill in the Makinohara plateau, a rural region filled with tea plantations.

The architects wanted to construct the house as a north-facing viewfinder overlooking the town and fields. They describe the house as a “big pipe” that “focuses like a telescope while looking around the opening scenery”.

Rooms are contained within two volumes: the horizontally elevated block at the front and an angled vertical block at the back. The former is coated in white render, while the latter has exposed concrete walls.

Residents enter the house through the two-storey vertical block, which contains bathrooms and a typical Japanese room on the ground floor and two bedrooms upstairs.

A centrally positioned staircase spirals up between the two floors, leading to a large living and dining room in the second volume.

The only window in this room is the large glazed wall on the north elevation, so all views are concentrated in one direction.

Below the elevated floor, an informal courtyard is enclosed between the entrance block and the supporting wall, where the architects have planted a few small trees.

mA-style architects is led by partners Atsushi and Mayumi Kawamoto. The pair have completed a few houses in the last year, including Mascara House and Ant House, both also in Shizuoka Prefacture.

See more recent houses in Japan, including a townhouse with a shimmering glass-brick facade and a residence fronted by a stack of gardens.

Photography is Kai Nakamura.

Here’s a project description from the architects:

Scope

A big pipe sticks out from the valley. It totally focuses like a telescope while looking around the opening scenery. Makinohara plateau that lined with a tea plantation and houses along a gentle slope spreads out here. Here is nice and full of nature.

I felt that it is necessary for client who has lived long there to find the way of building which could realize charm of this land again. While investigating surroundings and sites thoroughly, I began to think what kind of house suitable is.

At first, this site consists of tiered stone wall. Also, it was a landslide prevention area and under the cliff regulation. That’s why I was limited and was not able to use the whole site for the construction. Therefore, I constituted pipe-formed second floor part.

The plane constitution of this pipe is a trapezoid. Because the view of the room to the north is beautiful, the foot spreads out towards the north. I made a big opening for the north side.

This opening projects only scenery. In addition, it catches the change of the season and daily weather directly. Talks with a person and the scenery are born there. Not only the opening project scenery, but also it brings rich light and wind. Simple space constitution makes the room comfortable.

Furthermore, I made internal space and an outside border with the space vague to plan harmony with the scenery. I groped for the constitution of the details part not to insist on to realize it. I enabled it by making facilities and storing and opening simple.

There is nice and full of nature in local area. What are the natural environments that are rich for us? It will be the environment where nature is opposite the building which we live in equally and obediently.

There is the richness that we can realize by tying human and the nature through architecture.

Above: ground floor plan – click above for larger image

Project name: SCOPE
Location: Shizuoka, Shimada-City, Japan
Program: family house
Project by: mA-style architects
Principal Designers: Atsushi Kawamoto, Mayumi Kawamoto

Above: first floor plan – click above for larger image

Site Area: 337.15 sqm
Building Area: 72.95 sqm
Gross Floor Area: 94.06 sqm
Year: completion August 2012

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mA-style architects appeared first on Dezeen.

A tree-filled courtyard is glimpsed through the shimmering glass-brick facade of this house in Hiroshima, designed by Japanese architect Hiroshi Nakamura (+ movie).

Optical Glass House was constructed beside a busy road, so Hiroshi Nakamura and his studio NAP wanted to create a private oasis where residents could still make out the movements of people and traffic beyond the walls. “The serene soundless scenery of the passing cars and trams imparts richness to life in the house,” said the architect.

The garden is raised up to first floor level to make room for a garage below and the architects used 6,000 specially made glass blocks to build a two-storey-high wall in front of it. The wall was too tall to support itself, so the blocks had to be bolted together.

As light filters through the glass it creates dancing patterns across the walls and over a group of maple, ash and holly trees.

“The facade appears like a waterfall flowing downward, scattering light and filling the air with freshness,” said the architect.

An open living room is located just behind and is only separated from the garden by a lightweight metal curtain. This curtain folds back to reveal a second glass-block wall at the back of the room, which lines the edge of a central staircase.

Residents are faced with the staircase upon first entering the house. A water basin skylight is positioned immediately above and projects more light patterns onto the floor.

A split-level second garden is located at the back of the house, while the children’s rooms occupy the top floor, a dining room and kitchen are on the first floor and a hobby room, Japanese room and extra bedroom can be found on the ground floor.

Hiroshi Nakamura worked under Kengo Kuma before setting up his studio in 2002. Previous projects include the Roku Museum, a small art gallery with softly curving walls.

See more architecture in Japan, including a house fronted by a stack of gardens.

Photography is by Koji Fujii, Nacasa & Partners.

Here’s some information from the architects:

Optical Glass House

This house is sited among tall buildings in downtown Hiroshima, overlooking a street with many passing cars and trams. To obtain privacy and tranquility in these surroundings, we placed a garden and optical glass façade on the street side of the house. The garden is visible from all rooms, and the serene soundless scenery of the passing cars and trams imparts richness to life in the house.

Sunlight from the east, refracting through the glass, creates beautiful light patterns. Rain striking the water-basin skylight manifests water patterns on the entrance floor. Filtered light through the garden trees flickers on the living room floor, and a super lightweight curtain of sputter-coated metal dances in the wind. Although located downtown in a city, the house enables residents to enjoy the changing light and city moods, as the day passes, and live in awareness of the changing seasons.

Optical Glass Façade

A façade of some 6,000 pure-glass blocks (50mm x 235mm x 50mm) was employed. The pure-glass blocks, with their large mass-per-unit area, effectively shut out sound and enable the creation of an open, clearly articulated garden that admits the city scenery. To realize such a façade, glass casting was employed to produce glass of extremely high transparency from borosilicate, the raw material for optical glass. The casting process was exceedingly difficult, for it required both slow cooling to remove residual stress from within the glass, and high dimensional accuracy. Even then, however, the glass retained micro-level surface asperities, but we actively welcomed this effect, for it would produce unexpected optical illusions in the interior space.

Waterfall

So large was the 8.6m x 8.6m façade, it could not stand independently if constructed by laying rows of glass blocks a mere 50mm deep. We therefore punctured the glass blocks with holes and strung them on 75 stainless steel bolts suspended from the beam above the façade. Such a structure would be vulnerable to lateral stress, however, so along with the glass blocks, we also strung on stainless steel flat bars (40mm x 4mm) at 10 centimeter intervals. The flat bar is seated within the 50mm-thick glass block to render it invisible, and thus a uniform 6mm sealing joint between the glass blocks was achieved. The result – a transparent façade when seen from either the garden or the street. The façade appears like a waterfall flowing downward, scattering light and filling the air with freshness.

The glass block façade weighs around 13 tons. The supporting beam, if constructed of concrete, would therefore be of massive size. Employing steel frame reinforced concrete, we pre-tensioned the steel beam and gave it an upward camber. Then, after giving it the load of the façade, we cast concrete around the beam and, in this way, minimized its size.

Project name: Optical Glass House
Main purpose: Housing
Design: Hiroshi Nakamura & NAP Co.,Ltd.
Structure design: Yasushi Moribe
Contractor: Imai Corporation
Location: Naka-ku, Hiroshima-shi, Hitroshima, Japan
Site area: 243.73m2
Total Floor area: 363.51m2
Completion year: October,2012
Structure: R.C.structure

Above: site plan

Above: ground floor plan

Above: first floor plan

Above: second floor plan

Above: section

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Hiroshi Nakamura & NAP appeared first on Dezeen.

Y-shaped wooden columns support rooms and lofts at different levels inside this family house in Matsudo, Japan, by Hiroyuki Shinozaki Architects (+ slideshow).

A total of eight columns stretch up to the roof of the house, overlapping one another to support a spilt-level first floor containing two bedrooms and a traditional Japanese room, as well as three separate lofts overhead.

The living room, dining room and kitchen are all located on the ground floor and are loosely separated into different zones by the gridded layout of the columns.

“Although the whole house is just one space under big roof, it is divided loosely with Y-shaped frames and floorboards,” said Hiroyuki Shinozaki.

“I hope that the family uses the structure of the house in their daily life,” the architect added. “For example, people hanging pictures and figures from Y-shaped frames and marking the height of their child on it. And they will leave the trail of their life on the house like a well-thumbed book.”

A wooden staircase leads up to the split-level first floor, while ladders connect each of these rooms with the lofts directly above.

Flooring and furniture throughout the house is also wooden, matching the timber columns.

The roof of the house runs parallel with the angled wooden braces, as do the windows on the gabled facade.

An L-shaped terrace is positioned at the back of the building and wraps around the rear of the dining area.

Hiroyuki Shinozaki has completed two other houses named after letters of the alphabet in the last year. House K features a skinny west wing, while House T has huge rectangular holes in the walls and floors.

See more architecture by Hiroyuki Shinozaki Architects, including a cafe filled with courtyard gardens.

See all our stories about houses in Japan »

Photography is by Fumihiko Ikemoto.

Here’s some project details from the architect:

House H

Client: family
Location: Chiba, Japan
Site area: 161.82 sq m
Built area: 64.02 sq m (39.56%)
Gross floor area: 115.41 sq m (71.31%)

Completion date: Dec 2012
Structure: Wood Flame, 2 story
Maximum height: 7.96 m

Project Team: Hiroyuki Shinozaki, Sota Matsuura, Tatsumi Terado Structural Studio
Structure engineer: Tatsumi Terado Structural Studio
Contractor: Hirohashi Komuten Lo.,Ltd.

Above: site plan

Above: ground floor plan – click above for larger image

Above: first floor plan – click above for larger image

Above: long section – click above for larger image

Above: cross section one

Above: cross section two

Above: east elevation

Above: north elevation

Above: west elevation

Above: south elevation

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Hiroyuki Shinozaki Architects appeared first on Dezeen.

Japanese studio MDS has completed a countryside retreat with south-facing rooms in the foothills of the Yatsugatake mountains (+ slideshow).

Named Yatsugatake Villa, the house has a fan-shaped plan that gives large windows and openings to the walls of the living room, dining room and first-floor bedroom.

“The fan-shaped design – opening to the south – means plenty of sun streams in during the cold winters: no matter the time of day there’s always a place to bask in the sun,” said architects Kiyotoshi Mori and Natsuko Kawamura.

Two narrow terraces line the edge of this southern facade and are partially sheltered beneath the overhanging lip of the roof.

Smaller windows are positioned across the north elevation so that residents can benefit from cross-ventilation.

Inside the house, wooden ceiling beams are left exposed, while doorways with softly curved edges lead between rooms.

A wooden staircase extends up through the centre of the house to connect rooms on the ground floor with a combined bedroom and study room on the first floor.

Other Japanese houses we’ve featured recently include a concrete home with a glazed stairwell and a residence with a secluded balcony.

See more houses in Japan »

Photography is by Toshiyuki Yano.

Above: ground floor plan

Above: first floor plan

Above: section a-a

Above: section b-b

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by MDS appeared first on Dezeen.