Text description provided by the architects. How might these units accommodating 110 entirely different families be conceived as a community? Riken Yamamoto gave that question a great deal of thought. The result was this arrangement of buildings organized around a central space. It was based on the idea of threshold. The open space in the center of the site cannot be accessed except through the units. The units serve as gates to the central open space.
Yamamoto’s first social housing project encompasses sixteen clusters of housing that yield 110 units, arranged around a tree-lined central square that may only be accessed by passing through a residence.
Inspired by traditional Japanese machiya and Greek oikos housing that fostered collectivism amongst neighbors, Yamamoto prompts a passage from private to semi-public space, resulting in a threshold that creates a subsociety, enabling the “Local Community Area” while respecting privacy of individual families. Occupational limitations enforced by the Public Housing Act result in small units, so each features a terrace that faces the square, expanding living areas and connecting residents to the natural environment.
