Hasta La Ideas

Japanese studio NI&Co. Architects has built a small sound-proofed cabin in Nagoya where its owners can retreat to play the piano.

Nestled amongst a number of taller buildings in a residential area of the city, Piano House was designed by NI&Co. Architects as a simple structure with a purple brickwork exterior and a timber-lined interior.

An asymmetric roof angles up into a point above the entrance, creating enough height for a sheltered door with a window above.

This leads through to a corridor, created by a partition wall that gradually angles further away from the ceiling. This wall folds halfway along, leading through to a space accommodating both a grand piano and an upright piano.

“The spiral shape wall is extended to the inside, so you can feel the continuity of internal and external space,” said architect and studio co-founder Nina Funahashi.

The partition is punctured by a large rectangular opening that suggests an informal spectator spot.

As well as basic plywood panels, the interior walls feature several patches of pegboard that help to improve the internal acoustics of the space.

“We designed an acoustic layer and sound insulation layer by combining the general-purpose materials, so the soundproof chamber can have acoustic and echo function with a low budget,” said the architect.

A cluster of globe-shaped pendant lamps hang from the ceiling, diffusing light through translucent surfaces.

Photography is by Hiroshi Tanigawa.

Here’s a short description from NI&Co. Architects:

Piano House K.448

This house with a spiral shape plan is for playing the piano. The site is 7m width and 15m depth, and surrounding area is a quiet residential quarter. The blanks are created by rotating the house 10 degrees against the site, and it brought the soundproof effect as a buffer zone for surrounding area.

The spiral shape wall is extended to the inside, so you can feel the continuity of internal and external space by the wall. We designed an acoustic layer and sound insulation layer by combining the general-purpose materials, so the soundproof chamber can have acoustic and echo function with a low budget.

A sound wave can reach ears through air encircled with the spiral shape wall. The spiral shape wall extending to the inside is customisable for adjusting convey of piano’s sound, so the wall can bring about changes in the sound environment. It becomes the space for ‘sonata for two pianos’.

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a secluded spot for making music appeared first on Dezeen.

Japanese firm Naruse Inokuma Architects has designed a shared occupancy house in Nagoya with communal areas for eating, cooking and relaxing that encourage the residents to interact in different ways (+ slideshow).

Naruse Inokuma Architects says the building was designed in response to the increasing demand in Japan for houses where unrelated individuals share kitchens, living spaces and bathrooms.

Whereas most of these homes are adapted from existing properties, the architects based this new build on the principles of communal living and the need “for complete strangers to naturally continue to share spaces with one another.”

Bedrooms with identical dimensions are arranged across the building’s three levels, with the voids between them housing an open plan living, dining and kitchen area and a rug space on the first floor.

“The shared and individual spaces were studied simultaneously and, by laying out individual rooms in a three-dimensional fashion, multiple areas, each with a different sense of comfort, were established in the remaining shared space,” the architects explain.

A dining table near the entrance provides seating for large groups, while the kitchen counter, sitting room and rug space offer alternatives for smaller gatherings.

The 13 bedrooms each have a floor area of 7.2 square metres and the total floor space for each resident equates to 23 square metres, which the architects believe compares favourably to the world’s many one-room apartments.

Naruse Inokuma Architects previously renovated an apartment in Tokyo with raw plywood and smeared cement details and created an installation for Tokyo Designers Week featuring tree-shaped display furniture – see more projects by Naruse Inokuma Architects.

We recently published a white house in Kanazawa, Japan, punctuated by interconnecting voids and another in Osaka with a garden enclosed between the living areas and a high surrounding wall – see more projects in Japan.

Photography is by Masao Nishikawa.

The architects sent us this project description:

Share house LT Josai

This is a plan for a newly-built “share house,”* a singular model of housing, even within the architectural industry. The “share house” is an increasingly popular style of living in Japan, somewhat close to a large house, where the water systems and living room are shared by the residents.

What makes it different from a large house, however, is that the residents are not family and are, instead, unrelated strangers. So a special technique in both its management and its space becomes necessary for complete strangers to naturally continue to share spaces with one another.

In this design, focus was given to the fact that it was a newly constructed building, and the share house spaces were created through a reconsideration of the building’s entire composition.

The shared and individual spaces were studied simultaneously and, by laying out individual rooms in a three-dimensional fashion, multiple areas, each with a different sense of comfort, were established in the remaining shared space.

While the entrance hall with its atrium and dining table space are perfect for gatherings of multiple people, the corner of the living room and spaces by the window are great for spending time alone.

The kitchen counter is suitable for communication between a relatively small number of people. The rug space on the 1st floor is the most relaxed of all the spaces.

Through the creation of such spaces, the residents are able to use shared spaces more casually, as extensions of their individual rooms.

At the same time, the individual rooms, which seem to have the same character in plan, are all different due to their relationships to the shared space, defined by characteristics like their distance and route from the living room.

While this share house has such rich shared spaces and spacious 7.2 square sized individual rooms, its total floor area divided by the number of residents amounts to a mere 23 square meters per person.

This share house is thus so efficient and rich that the countless number of one-room apartments in the world seem to make less sense in comparison.

* Share House = a model of a residence in which multiple unrelated people live and share a kitchen, bathroom and living room. In Japan, demands for share houses are increasing, mainly for singles in their 20’s and 30’s. Most of these share houses are provided by renovating single-family homes or dormitories.

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Naruse Inokuma Architects appeared first on Dezeen.

A bevelled cantilever contains the living room of this house in Nagoya, Japan, by architects Studio SKLIM.

Named the Hansha Reflection House, the two-storey house has an entrance beneath its projecting first floor.

Shiny metal panels clad the indented face and underside of the cantilever, while a large window is positioned at its centre.

A ground-floor courtyard is hidden behind the house’s exterior wall and a terrace is located on the roof.

A study occupies a room beside the entrance and three bedrooms are split between the two floors.

Studio SKLIM are based in both Singapore and Japan, and this is the first of their Japanese projects that we’ve published. You can see two Singapore projects by the architects here.

Photography is by Jeremy San / Studio SKLIM.

Here’s some more text from Studio SKLIM:

Hansha Reflection House @ Nagoya, Japan

In Greek mythology, Narcissus looked into the lake to admire his beauty. But what if the lake was animate and looking at its own reflection in Narcissus eyes?

Situated at the entrance of Misakimizube Koen, one of the picturesque parks fronting a lake and flanked by Sakura trees, the house was conceived to be an object with the environment.

The programmatic zones of Public, Service and Private spatially organised the house into 3 distinct zones with further punctuation of the main massing with the Landscape element; providing spaces for the courtyard and roof deck.

This base form was further chiseled with structure, daylight/ventilation and viewpoint concerns.

65% of low rise Japanese houses are constructed out of timber, a material that has the strongest weight to strength ratio amongst other building materials like concrete and steel.

Using timber from a renewable source, coupled with building technology that utilised a hybrid of traditional mortise and tenon joint system with steel bracketing, this house was able to push the ubiquitous “boxed” building envelope for timber residential construction in Japan.  The solution to push the Public program to the upper level was obvious with the need to accommodate parking for 3 cars. In addition, this offered an elevated scenic view of the park by having living/dining/kitchen at the second level.

The extensive 3.2 m wooden cantilever was unusual with the norm capped at 1.5 m. The initial structural concept of using a truss floor progressed to the final structural solution; using an elegant inspiration from bridge construction and book shelf bracketing. Further reinforcement of the structure was made in the courtyard wall to reduce eccentricity of built form and thus lateral movements during earthquakes.

The idea of “Reflection” was multifarious and became a series of unfolded meanings; exterior reflection of surrounding, interior reflection of surroundings, introspective reflection spaces and reflection of the house structure.

The landscape falls into three areas, the front yard, the courtyard and the roof deck. The front yard accommodates parking for three cars and becomes the entrance frame for the house.

The connecting tissue to the park relies on the structurally evolved facade that visually associates with it and uses similar ground paving material.

The courtyard, an intimate private garden forms part of the environmental funnel to dissipate hot air during summer.  This space further anchors the master bedroom, 1-tatami introspective room, and double volume library.

The roof deck, the pinnacle of the house further heighten one’s sense of place with its surroundings and provides the perfect viewing platform for both Hanami (Sakura) and Hanabi (Fireworks) festivals.

Hansha Reflection House condenses the energies on site to formulate a dwelling that looks back at the surroundings with a slight twist.

CLIENT: Confidential
PROGRAM: 2 Storey Detached House with Courtyard and Roof Deck
AREA: 124m2
STATUS: Completed
DESIGN ARCHITECT: Studio SKLIM
KEY PERSONNEL: Kevin Lim
COLLABORATORS: Federico Mira (3D Visualization)
BUILDER: Sakae Advanced Housing Technology
STRUCTURE: KES System Headquarters Shelter
TIME PERIOD: 2010 – 2011

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