Designed for an 80 year old woman, EASTERN Design Office’s Slit House, a reinforced concrete residential project, “presents her both a life space with a soft light and an interesting experience of scale unlikely in a house.” Situated in an old Japanese city on a site 50 meters by 7.5 meters, the home has long slits that run along a 22 centimeter thick wall, making the interior space open, while providing enough privacy.
More about the home and more images after the break.
The slits allow natural light to activate strategic areas of the house during the course of the day. Glass is placed right into the concrete, without frames, and the light streams that shine through make reference to Fusuma or the Shoji (sliding doors used to separate rooms), in Japanese traditional architecture.
“The slits make us more sensitive to light. The interior space is light beyond our expectations. Light through the slits varies its appearance momently according to weather, season and time. The slits remind us our old experience in memory with poetic scenery,” explained the architects.
The house is comprised of a long living room, that includes a central table for ten people, a bed room, and in the future, the home can be used as a guesthouse of the company clientele. Wood partitions wall are movable and can be reconfigured to support the home’s changing needs. For instance, the walls can be adjusted to create guest bedrooms, or if all are removed, the space can be used as a conference hall.
The slits provide a tool for the architects to create “a silent ambiance just like in the midst of solitary jar and a poetic clearness as like in an endless spatiality. The slits hold the promise of an innovative design method of architecture.”
As seen on Yatzer.
Project: Slit house Architects : Eastern Design Office location: Japan Client: NIWAKA, INC. Site Area: 318 square meters Building Area: 210 square meters Total Floor Area: 210 square meters Structure: Reinforced Concrete Levels: At ground level Materials used: Concrete, Glass, Timber, Hemp carpet
