Hasta La Ideas

Japanese architecture firm Takashi Yamaguchi & Associates have completed this house in Ise, Mie Prefecture, Japan.

The project comprises two adjacent volumes with inclined roofs, connected by a central atrium.

Large glazed walls inside the house frame views of the surrounding landscape.

Living spaces are arranges round the atrium, while a bedroom and family room on the second floor  lead out onto a roof terrace.

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House in Ise

The building is located on high ground with lush greenery and a bluff that overlooks the beautiful Miyagawa-River flowing north-south through Ise City.

The Intention was to create a rich relationship between the house and these surroundings.

The building is composed of two volumes arranged in parallel.

A vertical void links the rooftop terrace and the light court on the first floor, drawing nature into the interior.

On the first floor, a horizontal void connected directly to the vertical one opens up a view of Miyagawa River.

The interaction of these external voids – the way they intersect and connect with interior spaces – generates richer, more complex scenery throughout the building as a whole.

Rooms are arranged around the light court, which extends into the entrance such that Miyagawa River bursts into view when the door is opened.

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The eastern volume’s first floor contains the living, dining and kitchen areas central to everyday life.

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The large opening dug from its northern end offers dramatic views of Ise and Miyagawa.

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The aluminum flooring’s dull sheen gently amplifies the illumination from the light court and reflects a variety of natural transitions onto the white interior.

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The second floor contains family space and a bedroom in an enclosed area with a sloped ceiling.

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Milky-white natural light entering through slits in the roof wraps the interior in a soft, subdued atmosphere.

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The western volume’s first floor contains the garage and a study.

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The long, relatively low opening in the study enables eyes weary from reading to rest with a view of the abundant greenery outside.

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The rooftop terrace and light court are open to Miyagawa area’s natural scenery and afford excellent vantage points for the summer fireworks festival.

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The building’s white exterior walls both reflect the fresh green of spring and catch the shadows cast by bare branches under the setting sun of late autumn.

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Such changing scenery is sure to create precious memories for the family that calls this house home.

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63.02° house by Schemata Architecture Office	Usuki House by Tonoma	Double House by Tsuyoshi Kawata

Here’s another house by Osaka studio TOFU Architects (see their N House in our earlier story), this time located in Fukui, Japan, and completely wrapped in a material normally used for roofing. 

Called Y House, the tall narrow building has a sloping roof and staggered façade clad in an aluminium-zinc alloy.

There are three storeys at the front of the house but the sloping roof means there are only two floors at the rear of the building.

The living space is located on the second floor, with a large window providing views of the surrounding fields and mountains.

The spare room sits in the eaves at the very top of the house, with a little glazed section in the middle of its floor, allowing views into the level below.

Photographs are by Dan Imai.

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Here’s some more information from the architects:

Y-HOUSE

This is small house for the young couple in Obama, Fukui, Japan. There is a vacant lot around the site.

So, by creating a large window on the second floor, it is possible to see paddy fields, mountains, sky and feel to spread over a floor area.

This plan has high ceilings and large living with cross sections of two small rooms. By the relationship between great room and small room, we created many different places in the small house.

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The house is wrapped with galvalume, the black masses standing quietly in vacant lot are familiar with the countryside.

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Architects: TOFU
Location: Obama,Fukui,Japan
Project Architect: Fumiya Ogawa+Tomonobu Higashino

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Site Area: 253.24 sqm
Project Area: 80.46 sqm
Project Year: 2010

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N House by TOFU	Long Tall House by Spacespace	Fiscavaig Project by Rural Design

This concrete house in Hiedaira, Shiga Prefecture, Japan, by Kyoto firm Thomas Daniell Studio, is located next door to the house and studio we published on Dezeen last week (see our earlier story here).

The entire building is made of exposed reinforced concrete, including the gabled roof, which has been treated to make it waterproof.

Built on a sloping piece of land, the house is a single storey at the front and expands into two stories at the rear.

Large windows in the bedroom and living room provide views of the surrounding landscape, which includes a national park.

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The following information is from the architects:

HOUSE IN HIEIDAIRA

This is a single-family house designed for a lush natural setting a new subdivision in the mountains above Kyoto.

The site slopes away to the north, facing onto a National Park, with a view across a forest toward Mt Hiei (the most sacred mountain in Japanese Buddhism).

In compliance with new building regulations that mandate orthogonal walls and gabled roofs, the house takes the form of a nagaya (traditional row house): a linear sequence of rooms contained in a long, narrow volume aligned perpendicular to the street.

The house expands in section to follow the slope: single-story at the street façade, expanding to two stories at the rear of the site.

This allows the gabled roof shape to define the interior spaces rather than simply sit on top of them. The bedrooms are half buried, whereas the living area is oriented toward the mountains.

The historical nagaya type is a response to the narrow, deep sites in congested inner-city Kyoto, with little or no space between buildings, but in this semi-rural location the lot has been divided in half longitudinally, with building and garden set parallel and having approximately the same width and footprint.

The rooms are arranged as a band running along the western edge of the site, enabling natural light penetration into each room.

The location of the building gives maximum separation from the neighbor to the east, and hence maximum sunlight in the garden area that remains.

The overall nagaya form remains as abstract as possible, made entirely from bare concrete.

The roof has no cladding or surface membrane (an invisible waterproofing compound has been applied to the exposed slab) and there are no projecting eaves, making the house volume akin to something sliced from a block of tofu.

There are no drains, downspouts, or gutters — or more precisely, the entire roof plane has been subtly shaped to become an enormous rainwater channel.

The roof perimeter slopes gently upwards, creating subtle parapets that prevent water from falling down the long walls, channeling it all to the building’s north and south ends where it may fall freely to the ground.

Architect: Thomas Daniell (assistants: Fumihiko Nakamura, Mike Heighway)

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Contractor: Shimizu Corporation
Location: Hieidaira, Otsu City, Shiga Prefecture, Japan

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Program: Single family house (2 adults, 2 children)
Area: 136m2 (two stories)

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Construction: September 2008-May 2009
Structure: reinforced concrete

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House in Hieidaira by Tato Architects	Himeji Observatory House by KINO architects	A House Awaiting Death by EASTERN Design Office

Lustrarsi gli occhi con Hobo please. Tutto il resto della collezione, lo trovate qui.
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Wooden steps lead to an attic with irregular sloping walls in this residence for an artist in Shiga, Japan, by Japanese studio Tato Architects.

The wood-panelled attic space is connected to the main residence of House in Hiedaira by apertures in the leaning surfaces, which look down into the main living space below.

A separate workshop building for the client’s work sits adjacent and slightly forward from the house, taking the same gabled form.

The two-storey wooden structure is clad completely in corrugated polycarbonate panels.

Photographs are by Satoshi Shigeta unless otherwise stated.

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The following information is from the architects:

The residence is located at the foot of Mt. Hiei near the border of Kyoto and Shiga.

Above photograph is by Tato Architects

The client is an artist, who needed an atelier and a home for his family, as well as a place for his parents whom he wishes to live together in the future.

With a regulation that mandates sloped roofs, the site is surrounded by gable-roofed houses which seem to provide a sense of calmness in the neighborhood.

Above photograph is by Tato Architects

Accordingly, we developed a plan that fits to the surrounding environment of this hillside residential area. The site was not large enough to accommodate all the needs of the client.  In addition, we were informed that an atelier may cause noise and odor.

Above photograph is by Tato Architects

Taking these constraints into consideration, we developed a plan in which three independent cottage-style houses–an atelier and two mini houses (one for the client’s family and the other for his parents)–are arranged in such a way to share the watering and drainage area.

The construction of the atelier was simplified to meet the low-budget limitation.

Above photograph is by Tato Architects

Cement excelsior boards, serving as fire-resistant thermal insulators and bearing wall structures, were attached to the structure, which were then covered with corrugated polycarbonate plates.

Thermal storage using night time electricity is buried under the ground to provide underfloor heat through the foundation. Bare concrete is used as the finished floor.

Likewise, walls and roofs is bare structural materials, which makes it allows the artist/client himself to renovate the building according to the clientÅfs changing needs.

Above photograph is by Tato Architects

The large opening is created on the north side of the building to provide natural sunlightillumination. In addition, cement excelsior board can be removed to receive sunlight from various parts of the walls.

Above photograph is by Yousuke Takeda

The size and arrangement of windows of the two dwelling houses are scaled to follow the proportion of conventional cottage style, which has an effect of making the houses look smaller than they actually are.

The ground level floors of these houses are simply finished with mortar in order to efficiently transmit the heat from the thermal storage system under the foundation.

Above photograph is by Yousuke Takeda

Lauan plywood is used for the interior walls, part of which are painted white by the client himself. The second floor does not need huge room, but needs sufficient space.

If a vertical wall is built, the wall divides the second floor to a very small room and void area. Therefore, instead of a vertical wall, a wall is built to give required space to the rooms.

Above photographs is by Tato Architects

The lean wall becomes roof-like-ceiling as well as hill-like-floor dividing the second floor space.

The lean wall also looks like a cottage accommodating another small cottage inside. Normally, a cottage is regarded that inside and outside is the same.

In this case, the cottage is not very simple accommodating another cottage inside like crystal.

Project information

Project name: House in hieidaira
Location: Shiga Japan
Site area: 490.00m2

Building area: 116.01m2
Total floor area: 186.14m2
Type of Construction: Wooden

Designed by Yo Shimada.
Design period : Apr. 2008 – Dec. 2009
Construction period : Dec. 2009 – Apr. 2010

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House K by Yoshichika Takagi	House in Fukawa by Suppose Design Office	Belly House by Tomohiro Hata