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Architects: Meguro Architecture Laboratory
- Area: 138 m²
- Year: 2017
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Photographs:Koichi Torimura, Taku Hata
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Manufacturers: A&A, Acor, Advan Co., Ltd., Cucina, IGKOGYO CORPORATION, IOC Flooring, TAKASAGO STEEL CO.,LTD., Toto
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Lead Architects: Mitsuru Hirai and Sayu Yamaguchi
Text description provided by the architects. Design of a stacked house‘Jubako house’is based on our concerning on the relationship between the house and surrounding neighborhood. Jubako: Japanese food stacked boxes, is a set of food containers which can be stacked to sort various kinds of food into each layer. We conceptualized Jubako to create space from series of boundary where perimeter of internal space can be linked with external space. Therefore, we carefully thought about dimension of the building, choices of material and sizes of openings.
Jubako house is a three-storey house for 3 residents. A young couple’s room is on the 1st floor and a parent’room is on the 3rd floor. On the 2nd floor, there are living, dining and kitchen so it is easy for the residents to access from their own floor. We arranged vertical circulation: stairs and elevator, and toilets on the west side of each floor. It is not only beneficial for arranging plumbing system, but it also prevents the interior space exposing to the sunlight in the daytime.
Other utilities such as bathroom, laundry space and studio area are on the 1st floor. Structure of Jubako house can be divided into two parts: RC structure on 1st floor and wooden structure on 2nd and 3rd floor covered by galvanized steel sheets. RC structure was designed to be the main structure for the 1st floor and a cantilever parking space. In order to balance of weight in structure, we used wooden structure on the 2nd and the 3rd floor. To create opening on the 2nd floor we designed a setback wall with opening height of 1.2 meters behind RC parapet height of 1.8 meters. The height of parapet is higher than the height of the opening; therefore, it can prevent the residents from interfering with the outside. As a result, this opening does not need any blind or curtain, so perimeter of interior space can be seen continually to the RC parapet. Moreover, this parapet behaves like a reflector of weather conditions where we can see shadow on sunny day or spots of raindrops on it.
Traditionally, when we discussed about ‘proportion’ of architecture, two issues were usually mentioned. First, the effect of the distance between an observer and a building made a roof or roof decoration object looked smaller than its actual size. In order to make the object look as big as the actual size, it is necessary to draw larger drawing than its correct proportion on the architectural drawing. Secondly, the portion from the middle of the roof to the top of the roof became blind spot when looking from the ground level. In this case, height of the roof would be raised up on the drawing. These two proportion issues are based on human perspective. This is why, when you look at the drawings of temples, roofs particularly are drawn with unbalanced proportion. In the same way, the stacked house‘Jubako house’also has openings where they could not be seen because of the parapet. We also concerned about choices of finishing and rhythm of joints intended to make the building in harmony with the environment.
Nowadays, the concrete issue like ‘proportion’ has been less concerned than in the past. More conceptual issues such as environment and sociality have become major topics in architectural professions. However, as long as we, architects, create architecture. Such architecture will physically exist throughout the time to present the idea behind.
