Hasta La Ideas

This hilltop house by Japanese studio Tato Architects comprises a metal barn on top of a glass box (+ slideshow).

Located between a mountainous district and the harbour-side town of Kobe in southern Japan, the two-storey House in Rokko contains a kitchen and dining room inside its transparent ground-level storey.

A balcony surrounds the gabled first floor, creating an overhang that shades the glazed facade below.

Upstairs, the bathroom is separated by a transparent glass partition.

During construction, the foundations had to be dug by hand as no machines were able to climb the steep terrain to reach the site, while the streel structure had to be pieced together from sections small enough to be carried up one by one.

We’ve featured a few houses in Japan with glazed bathrooms, including one with a garden behind its walls and one with a whole room dedicated to plants.

See more Japanese houses on Dezeen »

Here’s a project description from Tato Architects:

House in Rokko

Looking for the way an architecture does not fix the affect to the environment too much I have been somewhat anxious about what an architecture in a place commanding a fine view should be. It is the state of affairs freezing affect towards the environment. What is the way, while enjoying the view, not to be dominant to the environment?

At an end of the residential area developed in the past halfway up Mt. Rokko the site was broad but too steep to bring in heavy machines for driving piles. A plane of 3.5 m by 13.5 m was left when a sufficient distance was secured, for manual digging for foundation, from the old breast wall and heaped soil.

The site was not necessitating much anxiety about people’s eyes. As people’s eyes from below would not reach the first floor, the first floor was walled with glass all around so that the fine view could be commanded to full extent, which was equipped with kitchen and visitor’s toilet.

The first floor, while functioning as what is called LDK, was assumed to be used for such varieties of activities out of daily life as treating guests, creating music with friends, or taking care of his bicycles.

A bedroom, storing facilities, facilities using water were arranged on the second floor, which was leveled high with a roof of conventional appearance to join in the existing rows of old houses. The high- leveled second floor was walled around with wide openings distributed equally for the ease of natural ventilation.

Thermal storage system using midnight electricity was laid into slab concrete and on the second floor far-infrared radiation film floor heating system was supplemented. And in summer it is expected that balcony and eaves will block the sunlight and breeze from Mt. Rokko will carry indoor heat through.

Steel-frame construction was adopted complying with the client’s wishes. As physical labor was obliged, small 100 mm by 100 mm H-section steel was selected and each construction material was limited to weigh about 100 kg for carrying up to the site.

Steel plate of 4.5 mm thick was laid for the cantilever balcony all around to make up for the loss of level structural plane caused by a large cutout of the second floor for stairway.

Observing the environment carefully without responding downright resulted in this house of hollow bare mortar floor ceilinged high and walled around with glass.

I feel I have found a way to cope, on an equal footing, with the environment peculiar to this scenic site where the environment, the architecture and the resident’s various things of various styles and ages are mingling with each other.

Project name: House in Rokko
Location of site: Kobe Japan

Site area: 295.31m2
Building area: 56.00m2

Total floor area: 94.50m2
Type of Construction: Steel
Program: house & atelier

Project by: Tato architects
Principal designer: Yo shimada

Design period: Jan. 2010 – Mar. 2011
Construction period: Aug. 2011 – Nov. 2011

The floors of this house by Tokyo studio HUG are connected by the steps of a courtyard that climbs over a roof (+ slideshow).

Starting just above ground level, the staggered terrace steps up on top of a metal-clad garage to connect the double-height living room of the residence with a first floor bedroom.

Parapet walls surround the courtyard on two sides to screen it from the street that runs along the front of the house.

More Japanese houses on Dezeen »

Photography is by Satoshi Asakawa.

The text below is from HUG:

Terrace Step House

The site is surrounded by fields and located within the comfortableness of light and wind.

Therefore, the main idea was to focus on the exterior space, and create a house holding an atmosphere of “outside” more than “inside”.

Main feature of the house is the large 50 sq m terrace steps.

The terrace steps connect the first and the second floor, and links to the living room, bedroom flatly.

The inner spaces unite with the terrace, and blends in with the outer space.

Second floor section of the terrace steps is located on top of the parking lot of the front road.

This location able to cut views from the road, but let in the light and wind into the linked living room, and create a flow throughout the outer space.

The pathway of the inner and outer spaces unite by looping dimensionally, and connecting the skip-floors organically.

The terrace steps are an extension of the interior, a large pathway, a stage, an open square, and a main feature of the house.

This house holding the vagueness of both inner and the outer space is filled with light, wind, and the comfortable life of “outside”.

All the rooms of this renovated Tokyo house by Japanese studio Naf Architect & Design are connected to a wooden box at its centre.

The architects liken this connecting room to an electrical switch box.

It contains staircases leading up and down, an entrance from the house into the client’s chiropractic surgery and a small seating area.

Narrow grooves between each of the wooden slats let light filter inside and provide space for hanging picture hooks.

The living and dining room is located on the first floor just above, where the the roof of the box forms the surface of a kitchen worktop.

See more stories about Japanese houses on Dezeen here.

Photography is by Toshiyuki Yano.

Here’s some more information from Naf Architect & Design:

Switch Box in House

This is a total interior renovation project of an existing house, installing a box made of deck lumber in the middle of the house.

The existing house is 17 year-old, two-story, 4-bedroom wooden structure on top of semi-underground garage. It could serve as home, but we could not see how and for whom the room layout was made.

New owner of the house is a family of three; a couple with a child. Installed in the center of the house is a hall-like space made by a large box which gives a doorway to chiropractic clinic run by the wife, to the bedroom of the couple, to the entrance of the house, to living and dining room upstairs, and to karaoke room in basement. As rooms of various purposes were relocated in the existing house, the composition of the house became more like that of a complex facility. The box-like space which brings together traffic lines and connects each room is, in a sense, switch box of traffic lines.

The box is made of deck lumber, whose top side has large interspace between lumber and let sunlight pour downstairs. On the sides of the box are smaller interspaces to avoid the gaze but large enough to let through the voices. It allows loose spatial continuity from the second floor to the basement and at the same time, interspaces are adjusted to keep privacy when there are guests. In the living-dining room on the second floor, the top of the box comes up to the height of a counter suitable for housework. High side windows on the sloped ceiling take in ample sunshine and the top of the box can be used as sunroom. Hooks can be placed between the deck lumber to hang pictures, hangers or foliage plants anywhere we like. There is almost no exterior space for garden within the premises, and it was our challenge to introduce various living scenes indoors by using the box.

The existing house before the renovation was one of many typical houses in the real estate market. In this renovation, we made Karaoke room in the basement, taking advantage of the sound insulation properties of concrete foundation. We see possibilities in creating new living environment by taking advantage of such properties.

Name of the Project: Switch Box in House
Location: Suginami ward, Tokyo
Category: detached house
Structure: Wood construction
Maximum height: 8.859m
Frontal road: 5.54m on the west
Site area: 71.51m2
Total floor area: 127.99m2
Completion: Desember 25, 2012
Architect: Akio NAKASA(director), Daisuke AOKI

The floor of the dining room becomes a worktop for the kitchen inside this Tokyo house by Japanese studio Urban Architecture Office (UAo).

With concrete walls both inside and out, the three-storey house has a staggered ground floor, which creates the recessed lower level.

Every doorway, window and opening in the house is arched, while four staircases connect rooms with two separate roof terraces.

On the first floor, a wide corridor doubles up as an office workspace and separates a bedroom from the triangular balcony opposite.

The uppermost staircase climbs one of the exterior walls to connect the second floor with the larger terrace, located on the top of the building.

The plan of the house is also split into three overlapping blocks, which are arrayed to face five little gardens.

This is the first project we’ve featured by UAo, but you can see more houses in Japan by other architects here.

Here’s some more information from UAo:

ABE house
Dwelling as a Journey

Summary

This building’s site is a sectionalized residential district close to Tokyo.

On each surrounding site, there is a court yard in front of the house, and almost the houses are built in a similar layout.

In contrast, we treated the site as a garden and arranged our proposal thinking about how to make the garden comfortable.

Thus, this house was created by connecting three types of volumes of different angle. From this a new life style “house into a garden” can begin.

Concept

To arrange many gardens on this site, the form of this house is created by connecting three types of volumes.

The garden constantly connects inside, creating a lifestyle inside the house close to the garden.

Rounded openings softly separate spaces from where one stands and the spaces of different levels connect personal spaces to each other.

Walking around various personal spaces of this house becomes like a “journey.”

Location: Tama-shi, Tokyo
Architects: UAo

Structural engineers: Kanebako Structural Engineers
General constructors: Hanabusa Construction

Site area: 109.83 sq m
Building area: 43.81 sq m
Total floor area: 87.8 sq m

Structure: steel frame; 3 storeys
Principal use: private residence
Construction period: December, 2011

Japanese architects Ninkipen! have planted a tree at the centre of this hair salon in Kadoma and surrounded it with mirrored A-frames.

Half of these mirrors are arranged at right angles to the other half so that customers don’t have to look one another in the eye when having a haircut.

More plants are scattered around the salon, while a spotty dog statue greets customers at the door.

Small splashes of colour also crop up around the space on chairs, ornaments and electrical cable surrounds.

See more projects by Ninkipen! here, including an office with a bubbly facade.

Photography is by Hiroki Kawata.

Here’s some more text from the architects:

This is an interior design for a hair salon in Osaka, Japan.

First of all, we plant a pachira is 3m in height, and put mirrors around it like a swirl. Next, we set more mirrors and plants around them.

By this, you can relax in front of a mirror because your eyes don’t meet other costumers, and you can look increased images of plants reflected in mirrors.

We try to create a new scenery of hair salon by an original placement of mirrors.

Project name: LE CINQ

Architect: YASUO IMAZU / ninkipen!
Use: hair salon

Location: Kadoma city, Osaka, Japan

Design: 2010.10〜2012.2
Construction: 2012.2〜2012.3

Scale: 219.5m2