Japanese firm atelier HAKO architects used concrete dotted with formwork impressions for both the internal and external surfaces of these stacked residences in a suburb of Tokyo (+ slideshow).
Atelier HAKO architects formed two houses in one building along a narrow plot in Minamikarasuyama, west of Tokyo city centre.
The circular indentations made by the panels used to form the concrete create a pattern of dots across the exterior, which continues around the walls through the rooms of the two homes.
Both houses are entered from the front drive. The door to the ground-floor home is positioned beneath a two-storey volume cantilevered above.
This apartment contains one bedroom, one bathroom and an open-plan living area, where the kitchen is concealed behind white walls.
The larger dwelling above features a double-height living space at the back of the property.
Floating treads of a minimal staircase lead up to a landing, from which a small terrace encased in glass can be accessed.
“The terrace covered with glass was suspended in a void as an element to incorporate natural light above the living area on the upper floor,” said the architects.
Two bedrooms are housed within the cantilevered section of the building, one on each floor.
Another two bedrooms are also located on this floor, each with storage spaces tucked in the angled section of roof above.
The largest windows are located at the front and back of the plot, covered with louvered screens for privacy.
Keep reading for the information from the architects:
House at Minamikarasuyama
The house sits on a narrow and long site, while facing a small vacant lot beyond the road to the front east side, and facing a pedestrian path to the back west side.
On the south long side, buildings like apartments might be built and might cause the lack of the privacy and the natural light of the house in the future, in spite of the good condition the metered parking offers now.
The dwelling units of two generations having the entrances each separate on the ground floor were stacked in the vertical, and the family living areas were placed the west side of the each house facing the tree of the pedestrian path.
One the front road side, a certain distance for a buffer to the passer and neighbours was kept by providing the open space that has full width of the site under the cantilever building.
In order to be able to live comfortably without being affected by the change of the neighbour’s situation, main openings were set up in the east and west side in the direction of the long axis of the house, and the terrace covered with glass was suspended in void as an element to incorporate natural light above living area on the upper floor.
The distribution of the brightness and the silhouette of the light shine in the interior space are changing variously throughout the year and the day every moment, in response to the angle of the natural light.
Japanese practice k/o design studio has designed a bulbous silver building that adjoins a red-tiled rectilinear tower at the Senzoku Gakuen College of Music in Kawasaki (+ slideshow).
The freeform building, called Silver Mountain, houses new rehearsal halls, while the Red Cliff tower contains offices, a faculty lounge and student lounge.
“Free 3D form Silver Mountain and rectangular Red Cliff are designed depending on functional needs to be devoted for rehearsal hall and office, and located at the pivotal point of traffic of the campus, but intended to show the powerful outline of form and contrast of silver and red,” said architect Kunihide Oshinomi of k/o design studio.
A glass canopy spans the gap between the two buildings, which provides one of three pedestrian routes to the rest of the site.
The exterior of the Silver Mountain is clad in stainless steel plates in a pattern developed using 3D surface analysis to determine the most efficient combination of standard rectilinear tiles and irregular panels used to fill the gaps.
Inside the building, the curved walls create a smooth-sided cave-like foyer which leads to a rehearsal room contained in a central concrete core.
Further rehearsals rooms are located in the basement and on the first floor and feature undulating concrete walls that improve the rooms’ acoustic properties.
A faculty lounge on the ground floor of the Red Cliff building contains boxy armchairs and a separate meeting room, and adjoins a lounge area for students. The upper four floors contain offices.
First of all I wanted to avoid to be included into the category of architecture called as a ＊fragmentation or poetry dominant in Japanese cool design trend.
Therefore I intended to look back to the basic principles of architecture, which are form, space and material or colour.
Free 3D form Silver mountain and rectangular Red cliff are designed depending on functional needs to be devoted for rehearsal hall ＆ office, and located at the pivotal point of traffic of the campus, but intended to show the powerful outline of form and contrast of silver and red.
Silver mountain is carefully cladded with stainless steel plate based on precise computer simulation to maximise use of regular size plate. Red cliff is furnished as a random graphic patch-work of 3 different red colours of mosaic tiles.
Interior of Silver mountain is a purely exposure of back side of 3D free form and resulted to create spaces used for a lobby or foyer of each halls like a dramatic cave.
Rehearsal halls interior are also back side of 3D free form but flanked with exposed concrete waved wall for avoiding echo. First floor studio wall show interesting traces of the hitting pattern with this flanked wave wall and 3D free form.
Glass roofed space between mountain and cliff called as a Valley roofed with Cloud of glass is a main pedestrian root for this campus.
Location: Kanagawa prefecture, Japan Project: Silver mountain& Red Cliff Senzoku Gakuen College of Music Design: k/o design studio / Kunihide Oshinomi + KAJIMA DESIGN Photo: Nacasa & Partners / Atsushi Nakamichi Site area: 65,744,08 square metres Building are: 1,437,59 square metres Total floor area: 5,084,00 square metres Structure: reinforced concrete construction Construction period: 2012.04 – 2013.08
A rock garden filled with trees and shrubs is sandwiched between glazed rooms and floating windowless walls at this house in Japan by mA-style Architects (+ slideshow).
Japanese studio mA-style Architects designed the house for a residential site in Fujieda, Sizuoka Prefecture. The architects felt that residents would be better off without a view of their surroundings, so they designed an insular house with a private garden.
Named Green Edge House, the residence is surrounded on all sides by the narrow garden and glazed walls to allow residents to open every room out to the greenery.
“At first we imagined a house with an inner courtyard. However, indoor privacy is not kept in the architecture around the courtyard,” explained architects Atushi and Mayumi Kawamoto.
“The transparency of the glass weakens consciousness of a partition between inside and outside. Then the green edge becomes a vague domain without a border,” they added.
A blank white wall encases the house and garden, but hovers 65 millimetres above the floor so that daylight can filter into the house without compromising residents’ privacy.
As they chose not to add a courtyard, the architects positioned the living room and kitchen at the centre of the house, with a bedroom and entrance on one side, and a Japanese room and bathroom on the other.
The toilet and washbasin sit beyond the perimeter of the other rooms, so residents have to venture into the garden to use them.
Here’s a longer description from mA-style Architects:
Ryokuen no Su (Green Edge House)
Design Plan
There was the building site on a gently sloping hill. It is land for sale by the lot made by recent land adjustment here. The land carries the mountains on its back in the north side and has the rich scenery which can overlook city in the south side. However, it was hard to feel the characteristic of the land because it was a residential area lined with houses here. Consideration to the privacy for the neighbourhood was necessary in a design here because it was a residential area.
Therefore at first we imagined a house with an inner court having a courtyard. However, indoor privacy is not kept in the architecture around the courtyard. In addition, light and the air are hard to circulate, too. Therefore we wanted to make a house with an inner court having a vague partition.
At first we float an outer wall of 2,435mm in height 800mm by Chianti lever from the ground. We make a floating wall by doing it this way. While a floating wall of this simple structure disturbs the eyes from the neighbourhood, we take in light and air. A green edge is completed when we place trees and a plant along this floating wall. That’s why we called the house “Green Edge”. The green edge that was a borderland kept it intact and located a living room or a bedroom, the place equipped with a water supply for couples in the centre of the court. Then a green edge comes to snuggle up when in the indoor space even if wherever. In addition, we planned it so that nature could affect it with a person equally by assuming it a one-story house.
A green edge and the floating wall surrounded the house, but considered it to connect space while showing an internal and external border by using the clear glass for materials. The transparency of the glass weakens consciousness of a partition between inside and outside. Then the green edge becomes a vague domain without a border. The vagueness brings a feeling of opening in the space. In addition, the floating obstacle that made the standard of a body and the life function in a standard succeeds for the operation of the eyes of people.
It is like opening, and a green edge and the floating wall produce space with the transparency while being surrounded. The space changes the quality with the four seasons, too. This house where the change of the four seasons was felt with a body became the new house with an inner court which expressed the non-functional richness.
The Green Edge House does not change the inside and outside definitely.
There is the approach in migratory of green edge and the floating wall. The green edge along the floating wall is the grey area that operated space and a function from a human physical standard and the standard of the life function. We arrange the opening to a physical standard. Act in itself to pass through the floating wall becomes the positioning of the approach as psychological recognition.
In the Green Edge House, various standards make mutual relations each and operate space. For example, as the human physical dimension, standing is 1500-1800mm, and sitting is 820-990mm. On the other hand, as the human working dimension, 750-850mm on the desk, and 730-750mm in the washstand are normally scale. From the module that such a human physical standard and the standard of the life function, floating wall was set with 650mm from the floor, 800mm from the ground.
By doing so, we created the domains where the eyes of the people does not cross of inside and outside. It leads to a feeling of opening for the living people. The floating wall shows an internal and external border. On the other hand, transparency of the glass weakens internal and external difference. With the operation of the standard, and it raises excursion characteristics not to toe the mark.
Japanese architect Kazuhiko Kishimoto designed the ground floor of this house in Yokohama with barely any walls so it can function as a gallery and seating area for members of the local community (+ slideshow).
Kishimoto, principal of Kanagawa studio acaa, planned the lowest level of the timber-clad Beyond The Hill house as a series of courtyards and wide staircases that stagger downwards to follow the decline of a steeply sloping site.
Wicker cushions encourage people to sit on the staircases, plus there’s also a circular hollow that allows a group to sit together and have lunch.
According to Kishimoto, the client asked for a house that would be open to the community. “My answer to the requirement was to build the house ‘afloat’,” he explained.
“The wood deck, tilted towards the sloped road in front of the house, creates a place where the internal and external areas of the house meet and interact,” he added.
A square courtyard is open to the sky at the centre of the building and sits next to a glazed double-height space that functions as the informal public gallery.
Photograph by Ryogo Utatsu
Two staircases within the courtyard lead up to different parts of the building. The first ascends to a small office tucked into the south-east corner of the first floor, while the second leads up into the private spaces of the house.
The kitchen is positioned next to the house’s entrance and is the largest room in the building, as it is used by one of the residents to host cookery classes.
A wide staircase rises up from the kitchen to the second floor, which begins with a dining room. Some stairs curve outwards at the corners to form seats and one extends along the edge of the room to create a worktop.
“In daily life, of course, the space serves as the family’s living room,” said Kishimoto.
Bedrooms are located beyond the dining room. One opens out to a balcony, while the other features a raised platform with storage spaces underneath and a ladder that offers a route up to the roof.
Photography is by Hiroshi Ueda, apart from where otherwise stated.
Here’s a project description from Kazuhiko Kishimoto:
Beyond The Hill
A gallery in the centre creating communications and connecting the house and community
The house stands on a site facing a narrow, steep slope. Across the street is a wood, which promises a pleasant view with fresh greenery in summer and crimson foliage in autumn.
The client’s request was a residential house containing a small gallery and office. The request suggested that the house must be open to the town community. My answer to the requirement was to build the house “afloat”. To be precise, the gallery is the only grounded room, which is surrounded by a breezy and sunny wood deck raised at about 1m.
Round hollow on the deck floor accommodates a round bench, where people can sit and enjoy meals while watching over the wood view. The space may also serve as the external gallery. The wood deck, tilted towards the sloped road in front of the house, created a place where the internal and external areas of the house meet and interacts.
The residential area and office can be approached via respective staircases. The internal space of the residential area consists of a dining kitchen on the right and facing the wood, and a floor on the left, surrounding the courtyard and spirally ascending.
The dining kitchen has a wide counter table suitable for accommodating cooking classes the madam organises, and the uneven floor provides various corners for different number of guests to sit down. In daily life, of course, the space serves as the family’s living room.
Location: Yokohama, Kanagawa Date of Completion: January 2013 Principal Use: Residence, Office, Small gallery
Site Area: 132.47m2 Total Floor Area: 158.39m2 (66.32m2/1F, 79.00m2/2F, 13.07m2/garage,) Architecture: Kazuhiko Kishimoto / acaa Structural Engineer : Takahiro Suwabe
Japanese architect Tomohiro Hata planned this suburban house in Hyogo Prefecture as a cluster of three buildings around a courtyard, based on the traditional city residences of farmers, artisans and merchants.
Named House N, the family residence was designed by Tomohiro Hata to reference Japanese minka, a typical vernacular home from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that is often made up of several structures. These can include a main building, a separate cottage, a warehouse and a chicken coop.
“Following the form of traditional Japanese private houses, we considered an arrangement that can let all rooms open to the garden,” said Hata.
The three buildings fold around the generously sized courtyard, but also lead out to two smaller gardens at the corners of the site, which are enclosed behind a high perimeter wall.
“The building and the wall are integrated, so that the arrangement [of the plan] can be designed as freely as possible,” added Hata.
All three buildings have separate entrances, but are connected to one another by glazed corridors that allow views between the three outdoor spaces.
The largest of the three buildings is a two-storey structure with a dining room and kitchen on the lower level and a childrens’ room above.
Another two-storey block contains a multi-purpose room and the master bedroom, while the smallest building houses the family living room.
Large windows direct views towards the courtyard, which is made up of wooden platforms at different heights to one another.
The site slopes down at the rear, so the architect has slotted a single-car garage underneath the house.
Photography is by Toshiyuki Yano.
Here’s a project description from Tomohiro Hata:
House N
Housing that takes advantage of the richness of a private house in the city.
It is found that an architectural form as a main building, a separated cottage, and a warehouse: kura are built within a site surrounded softly by a wall at the suburbs of Sasayama city and Tamba city in Hyogo prefecture where many traditional houses remain.
Surrounding the area softly with walls, each of the rooms faces to the inner courtyard produced by the external space between each building. It is a very simple and rich living space as you can keep it open with feeling at ease.
By focusing on the characteristics of the house that site area is limited at suburbs in the complicated city described above, we aimed to create the environment protected as a residence with opening to the outside of the house.
This concrete house in Tokyo was designed by Japanese firm Apollo Architects & Associates for a family that regularly accommodates foreign exchange students (+ slideshow).
As well as two bedrooms and a large family living room for the house’s main occupants, Apollo Architects & Associates included a pair of guest bedrooms that open out to a private terrace at the front of the house.
“One of the key design concepts is to respect the privacy of the family and guests to achieve comfortable and relaxing lifestyles,” said studio principal Satoshi Kurosaki.
The terrace is invisible to people passing on the street because it is hidden behind stainless steel louvres, which interrupt the raw concrete that otherwise dominates the house’s exterior walls.
“The authentic and solid materiality of concrete is contrasted by sharp stainless steel louvres and this facade gives a touch of elegance to the streetscape of the neighbourhood,” added Kurosaki.
Named Calm, the three-storey residence is located in Bunkyo, just north of central Tokyo.
Rooms are arranged around a courtyard in the south-east corner of the building. On the ground floor, it sits adjacent to a music room and a traditional Japanese room that can also function as a spare bedroom.
Sliding doors allow all three spaces to open out to one another, as well as to the entrance hall and dining room behind.
“The floor can be used as a large open space welcoming many guests on occasions such as lectures, parties and more,” said the architect.
Balconies overlook the courtyard from the first and second floors above, plus a steel staircase connects it with a terrace on the roof of the building.
The living and dining room occupies the majority of the second floor, creating a space big enough to host a large group. A kitchen lined with mosaic tiles runs alongside and is lit from above by a narrow rectangular skylight.
Guests also have access to a separate bathroom, which is located on the ground floor.
Photography is by Masao Nishikawa.
Here’s a project description from Apollo Architects:
Calm
This three-story residence is designed to function not only as a house but as a guesthouse that occasionally accommodates foreign guests and exchange students. It is made of concrete using wood formworks composed of 40mm-wide cedar.
The authentic and solid materiality of concrete is contrasted by sharp stainless steel louvres covering the second floor window, and this facade gives a touch of elegance to the streetscape of the neighbourhood. Louvres effectively provide security and privacy at the same time.
On the first floor, a Japanese-style room, which is used as guest room, is located in the back. It is attached to a courtyard enveloped in exposed concrete walls with inscribed horizontal patterns of cedar formworks. By opening the sliding doors, it is seamlessly connected to open space facing the street.
The first floor can be used as a large open space welcoming many guests on occasions such as lectures, parties and more. Toilets and bathrooms for guests are located next to the entrance hall. A soundproof music studio is located at the end of the entrance hall. It is illuminated with soft natural light from the courtyard filtering through the translucent glass facade.
On the second floor, main bedroom and child’s room are located adjacent to the courtyard. Each room has a private courtyard and individual or common bathroom attached. One of the key design concepts is to respect privacy of the family and guests to achieve comfortable and relaxing life styles.
Spacious family room with an attached bathroom is provided on the third floor. By fully opening up wide stainless steel windows, the interior space is integrated with the courtyard of exposed concrete. One can access the roof balcony by exterior stairs from the third floor.
Our goal is to create an ultimate space for relaxation, like a hotel lobby or a salon, where one can feel free to enjoy himself/herself and appreciate elegant Joseon Dynasty-style furniture and art works that are placed here and there.
The interior and the exterior merge into each other at intermediate zones, and the host and the guests gather in harmony. This very atmosphere represents the warm welcoming hospitality of the Japanese culture.
Architecture: Satoshi Kurosaki/APOLLO Architects & Associates Location: Bunkyo ward, Tokyo Date of Completion: April 2013 Principal Use: Private Housing
This combined dental clinic and beauty salon in Takashima, Japan, by Osaka designer Ryutaro Matsuura features a plain white facade that conceals windows and patios behind perforated metal screens (+ slideshow).
Ryutaro Matsuura designed the two storey building to accommodate the White Essence Takashima dental surgery on its lower level, while the first floor houses Salon de M, a beauty clinic offering non-surgical procedures such as hair removal and slimming treatments.
To break down the scale of the building, the volume was conceived as a cluster of four structures surrounding a central courtyard. “We thought of making four small buildings and uniting them like a ring,” said the architect.
Treatment rooms and reception areas are contained within the four perimeter blocks, while the space between becomes a double-height atrium with a glass ceiling, used as a patient waiting room by both businesses.
Windows line the perimeter of the dentist’s treatment rooms but are fronted by “buffer zones” comprising enclosed double-height patios. Perforated metal screens are positioned in front to allow daylight to enter without compromising privacy for patients.
“This made cozy treatment spaces with soft daylight and patients’ privacy,” said Matsuura.
A mixture of square and rectangular windows perforate the walls of the beauty clinic, creating views both into the courtyard and out to the external patios.
Each of the four blocks has a mono-pitched roof designed to allow snow to fall away during the winter season.
A low concrete wall surrounds the site and integrates benches that Matsuura hopes will encourage activity around the building.
“We hope that this building will endear itself to the town’s people and be nurtured by them as a new landmark of the town,” he added.
Here’s a project description from Ryutaro Matsuura:
White Essence Takashima and Salon de M
We planned to build a facility comprised of the aesthetic dental clinic “White Essence Takashima” on the first floor and the aesthetic salon “Salon de M” on the second floor, which is owned by one dentist and located in a residential area of the northwestern part of Shiga Prefecture, Japan. What the client requested to us was “The building can give neighbourhood a sense of affinity and good impressions as a symbolic object in the town”.
We thought that putting together the necessary functions into one square-shaped ‘box’ should be avoided because the town’s people would not heart such a dominating building. So, we thought of making four small buildings and uniting them like a ring.
We also gave them shed roofs in order to slide the accumulated snow off the surface considering their heavy winter snowfalls. That is how we created a community-friendly shape bundling the slanted roofed boxes which are snuggling up to each other.
In regard to the interior space, we made the space enclosed by four buildings into a void space with a top light. It was turned into a comfortable place with varied natural light. We fixed perforated metal screens on the outside of the windows of the first floor treatment rooms to set up buffer spaces bridging the inside and the outside. This made the cozy treatment spaces with soft daylight and patients’ privacy.
The fence around the premises is punctuated by partial 350 mm setbacks that can be used as benches by any pedestrians. This design should alleviate a sense of rejection.
We hope that this building will endear itself to the town’s people and be nurtured by them as a new landmark of the town.
Project name: White Essence Takashima, Salon de M Use: aesthetic dental clinic (1F), aesthetic salon (2F) Location: Shin’asahi-cho, Takashima City, Shiga Prefecture, Japan
Site area: 1536.76 square metres Floor area: 364.87 square metres Date of competition: November, 2013 Client: Uehara Dental Clinic Design: Ryutaro Matsuura
The translucent polycarbonate walls of this house in Hiroshima by Japanese architects Suppose Design Office allow natural light to flood the interior from all sides (+ slideshow).
Named House of Tousuienn, the three-storey building was designed by Suppose Design Office as the residence of a family of five, who also requested a space for storing and repairing a collection of motorcycles.
Photograph by Takumi Ota
The long and narrow shape of the site dictated the shape of the house. It is surrounded on three sides by neighbouring buildings, so the architects added translucent cladding to allow light to permeate the interior without comprising residents’ privacy.
Photograph by Takumi Ota
“Most exterior walls are thick and heavy,” said the architects. “For the House of Tousuien, we used a thin and translucent material to replace the regular exterior walls, where natural light can be maximised in the interior space.”
Photograph by Takumi Ota
Windows are made from the same material as the walls, so they don’t offer any additional light but can be opened to allow residents to let fresh air into the building.
At night, lights glowing from within transform the building into a huge lightbox along the streetscape.
“The client can fully experience [the] change of the surrounding nature inside the house with a warm and bright space,” added the architects.
A steel structure made up of I-beams is on show inside the building and has been painted white. Concrete ceilings are left exposed, while the floors encompass a mixture of concrete and timber.
The motorcycle room occupies the entire ground floor and features wide sliding doors for easy access.
A small maintenance room sits in the centre of the space, while bicycles can be stored behind a staircase leading to the living spaces above.
Photograph by Takumi Ota
A kitchen, dining room and living room are grouped together on the first floor, with a bathroom positioned behind.
On the uppermost floor, an enclosed children’s room in the middle of the space creates a barrier between two larger bedrooms on either side.
Photography is by Toshiyuki Yano, apart from where otherwise stated.
Here’s a short project description from Suppose Design Office:
The House of Tousuien
The House of Tousuien is located in a quiet residential area, and it is designed for a couple and 3 children. The three sides of this house are surrounded by other residence buildings, and the shape of the site forces the house to stay long and narrow.
Most exterior walls are thick and heavy, where windows are added to balance out the heavy look of the exterior. For the House of Tousuien, we used a thin and translucent material to replace the regular exterior walls, where natural light can be maximised in the interior space.
Photograph by Takumi Ota
In the House of Tousuien the client can fully experience change of the surrounding nature inside the house with a warm and bright space.
This narrow house in Tokyo by local studio Another Apartment has no windows or doors on its front to prevent neighbours from seeing inside.
The house for a family of three is squeezed onto a 58 square-metre plot in a residential neighbourhood of the city.
It is surrounded on three sides by other properties, so Tsuyoshi Kobayashi of Another Apartment positioned the building on the northern edge of the site, and located the entrance and windows on the south-facing sidewall.
“We adopted a plan to make maximum use of openings on the south face and the roof for natural illumination, ventilation and views,” explained Kobayashi.
A spiral staircase with cantilevered treads and a minimal handrail links the ground floor with both the upper storey and a basement level designated for use as a home theatre.
The entrance opens into the living room, which also contains the kitchen and features a full-height sliding window that can be opened out to a narrow patio.
“The living room on the first floor is located a little higher than the ground level and has an atmosphere like a broad veranda as a whole,” said the architect.
Upstairs is a single space that can be separated into two bedrooms using sliding partitions that disappear into the wall when not required.
On the south facade, a series of windows spans the full length of the room, while the opposite wall features built-in storage and includes a hidden sink.
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