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Architects: K+S Architects
- Area: 54 m²
- Year: 2014
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Photographs:Hiroshi Ueda
Text description provided by the architects. Surrounding environment.
Rebuilding of a house at Nihonbashi-Ningyo-cho, Chuo-ku, Tokyo.
The house is built near the main street, and there are many old and new restaurants and shops around here. Almost all of the buildings has shops on the 1st floor, and houses or offices on the upper floor. There are many medium-size apartments and offices on the south of this site, so this site cannot get enough sunlight. Many four-storied of buildings are densely built in this area, so we have to consider about getting light and breeze well.
To keep living.
It is so hard to live for the only function of house uses in high potential area. We need to spend an excessive construction cost for the fire resistance performance, and for the long piles to reach the deep supporting soil. Even with that, why keep living in this place, the reason is that the area has deep communications, precious human relationship, and charms of this town. They feel proud of living in this town with history.
If we overlook the high-rise buildings, we concern about that the apartments become less connected with community. As a solution, we designed the environment that bound in close association with the town, with expectation that this space will be inherit to appeal of town, even if small space. Finally we settled a plan to design a reasonable house after consideration of peripheral vacant houses.
Open for the town.
To bound in close association with town, we made a balcony facing the street. And we design the vertical lattice of woods as the elements to inherit the sense of the town which produces flexible connection with the town in everyday life or festival, events. A parent household has privacy enough to go to the backrooms.
We plan a child household’s space to connect with town through the big windows, and to draw the town atmosphere. With imaging the future, we designed two separate holds. However each families will be close relationship in the future. So a child household’s living is the place where each families can gather, or as their workplace. Keeping a relationship with the town enabled this house not only to be used as a house, but also can be developed for other purposes.
The place to draw in the atmosphere of the town.
We designed that a child household draws in the atmosphere of the town into the house, and to the roof terrace. The stairs and entrance floor are made by rough concrete, the same as a porch floor. Living and dining have high cellings connected with the upper deck.
The wall is made by the plaster boards with dry joints, and painting with special coating. Floor finishing material is the cork tiles as a street outside. We can approach to the deck of the third floor, as if we walk in a street lane ”Roji”. The upper small rooms are located to be accessible by the stairs. They feel the warm sunshine and natural breeze through the urban canyon by the roof windows. The roof terrace is so useful and precious as a private small garden in the urban canyon.
