Hasta La Ideas

This tiny seaside home in Kanagawa by Japanese office Yasutaka Yoshimura Architects is contained within little more than a pair of oversized windows raised up on stilts (+ slideshow).

Yasutaka Yoshimura designed the small building as a weekend house for a single resident and positioned it on a site measuring just three by eight metres on the edge of Sagami Bay.

Named Window House, the residence holds all its living spaces in the narrow gap between two framed windows, which offer views west towards the distant Mount Fuji from both inside the house and behind it.

“It seemed too difficult to avoid blocking the view of the neighbourhood behind. So I designed a large opening of the same size as the sea side on the road side in order to keep the view passing through the building in the absence of the owner,” said Yoshimura.

“It stands between land and sea and became a house as a window to see through,” he added.

The house is raised off the ground on concrete pilotis to protect it from high tides. This creates a sheltered patio underneath with a view of the shoreline.

Concrete blocks with triangular profiles lead up into the house, arriving at a dining room and kitchen on the first floor. An indoor staircase ascends to a living room and then on to a tiny bedroom.

There’s also a small storage loft slotted beneath a floor, which can be accessed using a ladder that is fixed in a vertical position.

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slotted between two huge windows appeared first on Dezeen.

Toshiharu Naka of Tokyo-based Naka Studio added an asymmetric roof with overhanging eaves to this house in a Japanese skiing village to create a huge sheltered terrace for residents (+ slideshow).

Located within a patch of woodland in Nagano Prefecture, Villa in Hakuba was designed to adapt to a dramatically changing climate that switches between heavy snowfall in winter and soaring temperatures in summer.

Toshiharu Naka said he wanted to create a house that could open itself up to the surrounding woods, unlike the typical houses of the area that are raised a metre off the ground to protect them from deep snow.

“As a result, these houses are visually and functionally separated from the surrounding nature,” he explained.

To avoid this, the architect built a large polycarbonate roof canopy that shelters both the house and patio from snowfall.

“This large roof, made of polycarbonate panels to bear the weight of severe snow, is transparent to gain a lot of sunlight onto the roofed terrace. So, we can enjoy time and light in the forest,” he added.

Three ladders are positioned around the edges so that residents can hang curtains around the terrace. In summer these are nets to keep out mosquitoes, while in winter they are made of plastic to keep the heat in.

Sliding glass doors connect the patio with the main family room, which accommodates living, dining and kitchen areas, but can also be transformed into a bedroom by extending the length of a built-in bench.

Stairs lead up to a small study on an intermediate floor, then continue up to a larger bedroom space on the first floor.

The bathroom is housed within a small shed at the centre of the terrace and residents can use one of the ladders to climb onto its roof.

Exterior walls are clad with pale cedar siding and a concrete floor slab enables a passive geothermal heating system that gently warms and cools the house.

Photography is by Torimura Koichi.

Read on for a project description from Toshiharu Naka:

Villa in Hakuba

This small villa is an environmental device, where we can find ourselves as a part of nature throughout the year.

This villa is built in Hakuba, famous for its international snow resort. In this area, many houses have ground floor, which is set at 1 metre high from the ground because of the deep snow. As a result, these houses are visually and functionally separated from the surrounding nature.

So, I set the large roof upon the site at first, which enables a floor continuous with the ground level. This large roof, made of polycarbonate panels to bear the weight of severe snow, is transparent to gain a lot of sunlight onto the roofed terrace. So, we can enjoy time and light in the forest.

These architectural components work as a passive system at the same time. The floor, continuous with the ground, gains geothermal heat to store the slab under the floor. Surrounding snow works as an insulation in an environment below the freezing point. The transparent roof builds double skin, which enables natural ventilation by sunlight in summer and avoids ice dam problem in winter.

Architecture: Toshiharu Naka / Naka architects studio
Structural Engineer: Hirotsugu Tsuboi
Thermal analysis: Yoshitsugu Yamamoto
Location: Hakuba, Nagano Pref. Japan
Area: 84 sqm

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a huge terrace beneath its roof appeared first on Dezeen.

Few protective cases match the sophisticated design of the iPhone—though rare, they are out there. Take the fantastically named Curvaceous Bumper for iPhone 5 and 5s from Japanese accessories brand Squair, for example. Made entirely in…

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A geometric pattern of skylights frames views of the sky from inside this angular white residence in Tokyo by Japanese firm Atelier Tekuto (+ slideshow).

Named Monoclinic House, the building was designed by Atelier Tekuto to accommodate a small three-level home for the client as well as a pair of compact studio apartments for rent.

When viewed from the street, the house appears to have no perpendicular edges. The skylights, which comprise a square and four triangles, are positioned on a diagonal surface that could be described as a wall or a ceiling.

“We have designed a few polyhedron houses, as they are often effective solutions in small and congested lots in urban residential districts,” said the architects, explaining how the angular surfaces also help rainwater to drain off the walls.

The main residence is positioned at the front of the building. The living room is on the first floor and benefits from a five metre-high ceiling at the front, allowing the skylights to bring daylight through both this space and a mezzanine bedroom above.

“One of the key concepts was to ‘design the sky’, because when designing a house in an urban context surrounded by buildings, the sky is the most important natural element in direct contact with architecture,” added the architects. “The top plane of this polyhedron form becomes a large top light, connecting the living space with the sky.”

A spiralling staircase with cantilevered metal treads leads down to another room that can be used as a garage or workshop, while the two single-room apartments are tucked away behind.

Entrances are positioned at different points around the perimeter, including one that is recessed into a narrow front wall.

All of the outer walls are covered with white render, while concrete surfaces are left exposed throughout the building’s interior.

Photography is by Toshihiro Sobajima.

Here are some more details from Atelier Tekuto:

Monoclinic

This house consists of a garage and two studio-type apartments for rent. Our client asked me to design architecture similar to “Reflection of Mineral” that we completed in 2006. Therefore basic concepts of ‘Mineral’ are taken into consideration. In order to further evolve from our previous design we focus on the following three issues:

1. Form should be carefully considered to protect white walls from dirt from rainwater.
2. Design and detailing of large skylight
3. Selection of materials to minimise cost.

The living room provides a unique and impressive space; it is narrow (15.8 m2 in floor area), its highest ceiling height is 5.5 metres, and a large quadrilateral skylight (18.2m2) connects the space to the sky. Square panel, punctured with smaller square in the middle, is inscribed in the quadrilateral shape, and dramatic contrast of light and shadow provides a new perceptive experience.

I have been exploring possibilities of polyhedron architecture in small lots of Tokyo for ten years. Moreover it is my long-time challenge to liberate one’s five senses with eye-opening spatial. This project is one of such successful cases.

Date of completion: September 2013
Location: Setagaya-ku, Tokyo
Program: Private house + apartments for rent
Site area: 85.92 sqm
Building area: 42.61 sqm
Total floor area: 90.82 sqm
Structure: Reinforced concrete
Architectural design: Yasuhiro Yamashita and Azusa Ishii/Atelier Tekuto
Structural engineer: Jun Sato and Yoshihiro Fukushima/Sato Structural Engineers
Construction: Yoshiya Uchida and Masaru Shibasaki/Uchida Sangyo

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with a pattern of pointy skylights appeared first on Dezeen.

In our second story today from Japanese firm Ryo Matsui Architects, a glazed facade reveals the two-storey interior of a house-shaped hair salon in Chiba, Japan (+ slideshow).

Ryo Matsui Architects designed the Hairdo beauty salon with a simple interior of plain white walls and timber surfaces, leaving roof trusses and other structural elements exposed.

Located next to Chiba’s train station, the salon’s transparent frontage allows pedestrians to look straight through and see what’s happening on both floors of the building.

“The big glass facade viewed from the frontal road raises the internal aspect and contributes a sense of unity,” the architects explained.

Glass entrance doors lead into a reception and waiting area that occupies the front half of the ground floor.

A row of mirrors and chairs are fixed down the side of the far wall, while a shampoo and colour area is tucked away at the rear along with a small courtyard.

Upstairs, a styling area covers much of the large open-plan space, with a staff room and extra shampoo area towards the back.

Photography is by Daici Ano.

Here’s a project description from the architects:

Hairdo hair salon

This salon is located in the prefectural road in front of Chiba Station where a monorail comes and goes.

We planned the two-story hair salon. In a condition called the ten years fixed-term land leasehold, it is required the coexistence as an intelligent architecture and effective interior.

In the big roof covering the second floor as a main, it is made from a gabled roof-shaped by the warren truss with a light steel frame.

It is matched up steel materials as thin as possible, for example chord members of 60×60mm, lattices of 40×40mm, and roof purlins of 60×30mm.

The contrast of the structure painted white and sheathing boards, applying to the furniture and fixtures, let them fused their visual expression.

The facade of the big glass viewed from the frontal road, raises the internal aspect contributed a sense of unity.

In restrictive temporal axis, it is expected that the salon is integrated into as a picture frame of the city to contribute to local activation.

Building Site: Chiba-shi, Chiba
Principal Use: Hair salon
Architect: Ryo Matsui Architects Inc.
Structural Design: Ryo Kuwako
Construction: Nichinan Iron Corporation
Site Area: 141.99 m² Shampoo Area
Architectural Area: 106.7 m²
Total Floor Area: 220.8 m²
1st Floor Area: 113.41 m²
2nd Floor Area: 106.67 m²
Structure: Steel construction

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house-shaped facade appeared first on Dezeen.