Hasta La Ideas

This concrete house in Tokyo by Japanese architect Hiroyuki Ito has a glazed stairwell that splits the building into two distinct halves.

Ito, of O.F.D.A. Associates, describes the three-storey house as “two boxes” containing a mix of both rooms and courtyards.

Named Takanawa House, the building accommodates living rooms and bedrooms on both sides of the central divide, while a small single bedroom is suspended above the stairwell on the top floor.

“The staircase landings that connect the boxes are actually bridged by concrete cantilevering floors, which barely touch,” said Ito. “The same gap in the roof forms a thin skylight permitting a sliver of sunlight to help illuminate the circulation space below.”

Walls and ceilings inside each of the rooms are painted white but the interior of the stairwell features the same exposed concrete surfaces as the building’s exterior, with a textured finish that reveals the markings of its wooden formwork.

Two courtyards are located on opposites sides of the ground floor and are orientated to each receive daylight at different times of day.

Windows puncture all four facades, but are relatively small in comparison with the glazed stairwell. “The facade contains minimal openings, in order to have relevant relations with neighbours in this area,” explained Ito.

There are also glazed walls inside the house so residents can look down onto the courtyards from rooms on the upper floors.

Other Japanese houses we’ve featured recently include one with a secluded balcony and one with a sweeping facade.

See more houses in Japan »

Photography is by Daici Ano.

Above: site plan

Above: ground floor plan

Above: first floor plan

Above: second floor plan

Above: section one

Above: section two

The post Takanawa House by Hiroyuki Ito
and O.F.D.A. Associates appeared first on Dezeen.

Japanese studio Mattch has completed a family house in Nagoya with a sweeping facade that stretches out towards the corner of its plot (+ slideshow).

While the rear and side walls of House H are straight, Mattch designed the roof of the building as an irregular gable that curves up then down as it runs along the length of the building.

“I let the form of the ceiling curve gently to diffuse the light that enters through the slit-shaped top light on the north side of the ridge,” said architect Ryuji Takenaka.

The curved elevation frames the outline of a patio at the entrance, while a row of timber rods screens a sheltered deck that could be used for storing bins or bicycles.

Glass walls slide back to connect the patio with the interior, where a kitchen, living room and dining room occupy one double-height space at the front of the building.

A traditional Japanese room filled with Tatami mats is also located in this space but can be partitioned off when necessary behind folding translucent screens.

A mezzanine floor is positioned above the bedroom and bathrooms to provide a multi-purpose room at the rear of the home.

The owner of the residence works for a paint company, so the interior was decorated using white paint he supplied. “[He] wanted to make a showroom for visitors,” explained Takenaka.

Wooden flooring runs through each room, while exposed wooden columns provide extra support for the concealed steel framework.

House H is one of many projects we’ve published that are named after letters of the alphabet and you can see more by catching up with our A-Zdvent calendar, which is counting down one house every day until Christmas.

Other Japanese homes we’ve featured recently include one that generates all its own energy and heating.

See more houses in Japan »

Photography is by Nacasa & Partners.

Above: ground floor plan – click above for larger image

Above: first floor plan – click above for larger image

The post House H
by Mattch appeared first on Dezeen.

Daylight funnels into this dark concrete house in Japan through two narrow light wells in the roof.

Designed by Japanese studio Tomoaki Uno Architects, the two-storey house in Nagoya contains just three rooms; a living room and bathroom on the ground floor and one bedroom on the half-sized first floor.

Aside from the skylights, the building has no windows in the double-height living room, creating a space that is dimly-lit.

Despite this, architect Tomoaki Uno told Dezeen he “values sunlight” most of all. “The inside is dark in these photographs, but that expression varies from one day to another,” he said.

The interior walls are left as stark concrete.

This theme continues on the exterior, where the only relief from the bare concrete walls is a metal door that reveals an entrance on the side of the building.

Uno described the project as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. “I do not make such an architecture all the time,” he said.

Other houses in Japan we’ve published this week include a residence with sheds on the roof and a house with courtyards punching through its walls.

See more Japanese houses on Dezeen »

See more stories about concrete »

Here’s a few extra project details from the architect:

House at Ryusenji

Location: Nagoya, Aichi
Prinicpal use: residence

Site area: 118.33 sq m
Total floor area: 69.94 sq m
Structure: wall reinforced concrete
Scale: 2 storeys

Above: plans and section – click above for larger image

The post Ryusenji House by
Tomoaki Uno Architects appeared first on Dezeen.

The top floor rooms of this house in Japan by Tato Architects are contained inside sheds that sit on the roof (+ slideshow).

Located in a residential area in Hyogo Prefecture, the house was designed for a family with two children. “The residents requested that, as the area has short hours of sunlight in winter, they’d like to bring in as much light as possible,” architect Yo Shimada of Tato Architects told Dezeen.

To achieve this, the architect designed two of the rooftop sheds like greenhouses with translucent polycarbonate walls that let light through into the study room and bathroom contained inside, as well as down to the ground floor spaces below.

A layer of translucent insulation prevents the bathroom walls becoming too transparent. “There is no problem because they are not clear enough to expose more than the silhouettes,” explained Shimada.

The third shed has opaque walls to create more privacy for a guest bedroom.

Ladders and a staircase connect the upstairs rooms with the living room and kitchen on the lower floor, which is slightly sunken into the site.

This reduces the height of the building and also brings the rooftop courtyard closer to the ground. “It was expected that the whole site could be used like a garden,” said the architect.

Two bedrooms are also located on the ground floor and were designed with wooden walls so that they would look like storage crates.

Other recent projects by Tato Architects include a house with stairs in its lightwell and a house that comprises a metal barn on top of a glass box.

See all our stories about Tato Architects or see more Japanese houses on Dezeen.

Here’s some more information from Yo Shimada:

Looking for the stable climate in the room

This is a house in the northern part of Hyogo Prefecture for a couple and their two children. The construction site is a part of a place surrounded by mountains and the sky is overcast most of the days.

I wanted to create light, stable indoor climate and came up with a plan of three sheds of house type arranged on a 1.8 m high, grey foundation platform.

The level of the first floor was lowered by 760 mm below the ground to get firm basement, as the site was slant before the development, and to get more stable performance of the floor heating system of foundation heat condensing type utilizing the terrestrial heat.

It was also expected that the whole site could be used like a garden as the rooftop neared the ground thereby.

The site is at the corner entering the residential area and I thought that lowering the rooftop would leave wide visibility to the surroundings of the mountains and the sky, and that it would be beneficial to the whole residential area.

Overhead courtyard

On the foundation platform I arranged three – for a bathroom, for a sunroom and for a guestroom.

The bathroom shed and the sunroom shed provide lighting and ventilation for the lower floor. They form a overhead courtyard in a sense. Especially the sunroom collects heat in winter, and exhausts heat in summer by the breeze through the five motor-operated windows.

The three sheds do not actually provide spaces for usual staying but cover the living floor on the foundation platform.

This resulted in keeping away from neighboring eyes and keeping in touch with eyes of children playing in the garden or nearby.

Accordingly, I think, both delicate closeness and distance to the surroundings have been realized.

The residential area including the site was developed in recent years and is the front for the fields to change further to building lots. It was anticipated that brand-new commercialization houses would be built one after another.

By constructing a house looking as small as a peasant’s work shed of such material as vernacular as corrugated panels in an agricultural area I expected for this house to be a tie for the prospective rows of such new houses and the rural landscape still existing.

For free behavior of things

Some box-shape volumes, such as storages and a lavatory were required in the house, and they were made to resemble boxes for packing. Through studying the method of fixing the balustrade onto the rooftop without damaging the waterproofing membrane benches were mingled with the balustrade.

A washstand is fixed to the stairwell serving as handrail as well. The sunroom is a greenhouse itself, where various elements are misused as reference elements. Construction elements, such as handrails and top lights, are mingled together with conventional things for dual serving.

The reason for such elaboration is that I wanted to give the indoor scenery a kind of freedom using everything happened to be there as bricolage. Various things the residents carry in are expected to behave freely.

About material

Corrugated polycarbonate panels are used for outer walls of bathroom shed and sunroom shed among the three sheds to take in solar radiation. Moisture and water absorbing and heat-retaining sheets of greenhouse use are inserted in between the corrugated panels and structure.

The inside of the walls are formed with heat insulating layer of polycarbonate clear hollow sheet. The ceiling and walls of bathroom are further filled up with light transmitting thermal insulation material of reproduced PET bottles.

To bring the second floor close to the first floor 50 mm square pipes are laid around the opening connecting both floors. They are sandwiched by the flooring material and the ceiling material to come up to 80 mm thickness. This opening is to be closed with a shade during extremely hot hours in summer and extremely cold nights in winter.

The outer walls of a foundation platform are covered with fiber reinforced cement board leaving space a little to make rainwater drops easily off the edges and also to provide shading. The RC part is provided with external heat insulation and broken cobblestones are laid all around it for drainage of rainwater and heat insulation.

Project name: House in Yamasaki
Location of site: Hyogo, Japan
Site area: 231.72m2
Building area: 93.68m2
Total floor area: 119.11m2
Type of Construction: Wooden
Program: house
Project by: Tato architects
Principal designer: Yo Shimada
Design period: Oct.2010 -Aug. 2011
Construction period: Oct.2011 – Feb.2012

Above: ground floor – click above for larger image

Above: first floor – click above for larger image

Above: long section – click above for larger image

Above: cross-section – click above for larger image

Above: north elevation – click above for larger image

Above: east elevation – click above for larger image

The post House in Yamasaki
by Tato Architects appeared first on Dezeen.

Black-stained cedar clads this weekend house at the beach in Chiba, Japan, by Tokyo studio BAKOKO (+ slideshow).

Architects Kayoko Ohtsuki and Alastair Townsend of BAKOKO designed the house for a Tokyo-based couple that wanted a second home by the sea. “He envisioned a rustic retreat where he can throw parties on deck and she wanted a high-spec kitchen, a luxurious bath with a view and her own hobby room for sewing projects,” explained Townsend. “We developed a compact design to accommodate their varied interests with the flexibility to informally sleep five or six guests.”

The entrance to the house is tucked inside a traditional Japanese genkan; a porch where residents can take off their shoes.

Most of the ground floor is taken up by a double-height living and dining room, which opens out to the sheltered deck that stretches across the facade. “To maximize solar exposure, the glazed facade is angled south, shaded by a projecting eave during hot summer months,” said Townsend.

Stairs lead up from the living room to a spruce-clad mezzanine that is used as both a guestroom and a home office.

From here, a ladder leads up through a pivoting skylight so that residents can climb up onto the roof and survey their surroundings.

The bathroom is at the corner of the ground floor, beside a window that faces out onto a small walled garden.

The house also features an outdoor shower, as one of the residents is a keen surfer.

Townsend told Dezeen how the project was “almost aborted after the March 2011 earthquake,” as the disaster forced the clients to rethink what the house might have to withstand. He explained how the house was designed with earthquake and typhoon-proof foundations and in the end the clients chose to proceed with the construction.

Other Japanese weekend houses we’ve featured include a woodland summerhouse and a house of two blocks beside Tokyo Bay.

See more stories about holiday homes or see all our stories about Japanese houses.

Here’s some extra information from BAKOKO:

Onjuku Surf Shack
2012 Onjuku, Japan

Onjuku is a popular seaside resort and fishing town on Chiba’s Pacific coast, about an hour and a half by train from Tokyo. The beach house is sited behind a bluff, 300 meters from Onjuku’s famous white sand beach. Built for an international couple (the husband is a lifelong surfer who live and work in Tokyo), this weekend getaway may become a permanent residence once they reach retirement.

The home’s concealed entrance is served by a Japanese genkan, a porch separating the home proper from a built-in shed for stashing surfboards and bicycles. This tunnel-like outer porch connects the gated rear entryway and the wooden deck which incorporates a built-in seat and planter. Timber shutters slide across the entire southern eave, securely locking-down the home to protect it from the seasonal typhoons.

From the road, the home maintains an intentionally low profile. Its austere stained tongue and groove cladding is sourced from native Japanese cedar.

Returning from the beach, a private outdoor shower leads directly into the tiled bathroom. An intimate garden provides a tranquil backdrop to the sunken bathtub.

The home’s dark exterior skin contrasts with its light and airy interior. The double-height living space is occupied by a spruce-clad box that supports a loft space above and contains the master bedroom, WC, and bathroom below. Careful detailing has incorporated the staircase and doors that close flush to conceal these private rooms.

Sitting at the built-in desk upstairs, one can gaze out the sea for inspiration. The shallow pitched roof is accessible via a ladder extending into a large pivoting skylight.

Since the home is intended for casual entertaining, the loft spaces and a timber-lined lower study double as occasional guest rooms.

The home is predicated on passive design principles. Generous south-oriented glazing is shaded by the eaves in summer. Cross ventilation captures cool sea breezes. Slotted perforations milled into the wooden balustrade promote air circulation and cleanly conceal mechanical air conditioning units. In winter, the wood-burning stove provides renewable heat energy.

Above: ground floor plan – click above for larger image

Above: first floor plan – click above for larger image

The post Onjuku Surf Shack
by BAKOKO appeared first on Dezeen.