Shell House by Artechnic: A Great Balance Between Indoor and Outdoor Spaces, Karuizawa, Nagano
 
The Shell House designed architect Kotaro Ide, president of Artechnic in Japan,  is one of the most amazing architectural designs I’ve seen. Deep in the woods of Karuizawa, in the Nagano prefecture of Japan, this amazing double-elliptical holiday retreat, features lots of space and is made of reinforced concrete and wood to preserve the Japanese “traditions”. The interior lines of the shell are glazed in floor to ceiling glass allowing for expansive views into the surrounding woods. The interior space is an open flowing floor plan with built-in furniture, and ulin wood floors that mirror the wooden floating decks which extend from the interior space into the wooded exterior.  Clean clear lines, loads of light, a great balance between indoor and outdoor space and what a view. Woods, woods and more woods!
Photography by Nacasa & Partners Inc.

© Yohei Sasakura

hitects: TOFU architects
Location: Hikone, Shiga, Japan
Project Architect: Fumiya Ogawa+Tomonobu Higashino
Project Area: 178.76 sqm
Completion: 2011
Photographs: Yohei Sasakura

© Yohei Sasakura

This building which has grand stairs is composed of duplex house and a cafe. The site is facing the shopping street leading to the Hikone castle from Hikone station in Shiga.

© Yohei Sasakura

The owner wanted a cafe space on the first floor, so the approach was needed to the third floor.
Considering the daily uses, the grand stairs were surrounded gradually around the building.

© Yohei Sasakura

We adjusted the level of the grand stair to the existing level of the arcade. As a result, creating a facade that was incorporated arcade looks interesting.
The stairs are not only for vertical movement, it can be used as a continuous private outdoor space with different heights.
For example, it can be a children’s playground, garden, drying place and so on.
The owner manages a Chinese-style cafe on the first floor.

© Yohei Sasakura

We placed Toilets and Cooking space under the stairs,therefore seats area could place square and also tables can be laid efficiently.
The garden is located on the back of the store,so there could have a comfortable space through their eyes.
The interior uses the wood which has good affinity with a concrete, giving the impression of comfort.

© Yohei Sasakura

The second floor has the room of a parent households, and the third floor is the room of the child household.
The interior of the house has given the warmth of wood using a plywood OSB.
We used the polished OSB plywood,so the plywood became smooth and the wood became abstraction like using wood chips.
Cite:
Ross , Kritiana . "H-House / TOFU architects" 30 Dec 2011. ArchDaily. Accessed 30 Dec 2011.

The Pentagonal House by Kazuya Morita Architecture

 
Kazuya Morita Architecture have completed the Pentagonal House in Tsushima city, Japan.

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"Description from the architect:
Think about roofs, we can say it is another landscape, which is created from where the architecture would build. As well as the natural landscape has, they have full of attractiveness for the space to live for us. And at the same time, roofs had formed by integration of different kind of technologies, so we can say roofs as “meta-technology” of architecture. If we start designing architecture from thinking about roofs as meta-technology, we have chance to deliver another technology for making roofs to be better landscape to live.
The site is within a calm village near Nagoya, Japan. It is a housing for young couple, and just next to this architecture, there is an old Japanese style house their parent lives. To respect for and harmonize with neighboring environment, we delivered traditional hipped roof as many neighboring houses has. This characteristic pentagonal geometry of plan was delivered to have the maximum space in this site and adequate open space around it. Then we start to think about how to live under the second landscape, pentagonal hipped roof.
Five main structural walls were set in radially, and it makes possible to take in the outside spaces as extension of interior spaces. In the center of the architecture, radial walls were cut off in dome shape, to make space for a dining table. Here, under the peak of the landscape, we have tall ceiling height and whole families can enjoy their dishes all together and wide range views to gardens. In 5 surrounding spaces with low ceiling height, under the skirts of the landscape, people can stay calm and relax with appropriate distance from others, just like a life in our traditional house.
Besides delivering this characteristic geometry ( it is a kind of technology) to the plan of this architecture, we tried to use the most usual wooden structure system what most Japanese houses are constructed nowadays. Walls were finished with round corner in Japanese traditional white plaster

Location : Tsushima city, Aichi pref. JAPAN
Program : private housing
Structure : wood
Site area : 692.63 sq.
Built area : 87.73sq.
Design : Kazuya Morita Architecture Studio
Structure engineer : Mitsuda Structural Consultants
Construction : HATANOKOUMUTEN Co,. Ltd.
Photo : Shinichi Watanabe
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© Nacasa & Partners

Architects: AE5 partners / Hidenari Arai, Stefano Tozzi
Location: Kaga, Ishikawa, Japan
Project Year: 2011
Project Area: 84.64 sqm
Photographs: Nacasa & Partners

 
Along a series of lushly green mountains, narrow rice field terraces are divided by a mountain stream. Surrounded by this complicated yet beautiful abundant nature, a settlement can be seen in Kashiwano-machi, a town in Kaga city, Ishikawa, Japan. The project site was established in an gap along by a national road running the edge of the city. How should the building be designed to fill the space in a town that was slowly built up over a long period of time by people and nature?

Site Plan

The foundational concept of the plan should proceed from the climate, the culture, and the historical context, while still expressing modernity. It was thought that this approach may be necessary and most natural for the residents and town people.

© Nacasa & Partners

A “Kura” (Japanese warehouse) is a feature of the typology of the town. It is a secondary house that can be seen anywhere, since every house in the town has a Kura. With small, aesthetic proportions, it fills the space and distance between houses and it helps block the prying eyes of neighbors.

© Nacasa & Partners

It can be said that the planning site complies with the traditional construction style of the town: a house like a Kura with a few open doors is built between a busy national road and the head house in which the client family lives. Additionally, the volume of a Kura suits the current “a house for a woman living alone” theme. While moving forward with the plan, the typological aspect of the Kura was used within the constraints of the building’s site and context to specialize the process.
 

Floor Plan

The process begin like this: a decision was made using a volume study that maintained the proportions of the dialogue between the building plan and the surrounding environment. Then, between the main house and the planned building, a chevron shaped courtyard was made way for, creating a complete assembly whose plan is known as Kunoji.

© Nacasa & Partners

Between the Kunoji and the main house the space became a welcoming courtyard and, at the same time, the north-western side of the Kunoji produced a small space that answered the client’s request of having a private garden. Via this process an architectural shape that acts as a part of the town was derived.

© Nacasa & Partners

 
Text provided by AE5 partners

Cite:
Jett , Megan . "House in Kaga / AE5 partners" 17 Oct 2011. ArchDaily. Accessed 18 Oct 2011.

© Toshiyuki Yano

Architects: Katsutoshi Sasaki + Associates
Location: Toyota, Aichi, Japan
Site Area: 191.71 sqm
Built Area: 84.18 sqm
Total Floor Area: 101.94 sqm
Type of Construction: Wooden
Exterior Materials: Metal finish
Interior Materials: Paint finish
Design time：June2010 – February 2011
Completion: 2011
Structure company:  Masaki structural laboratory
Construction company:  Inoue construction Ltd
Photographer: Toshiyuki Yano

 

© Toshiyuki Yano

Prerequisite
The lot is located in a residential area and is surrounded by neighboring housings, with a mother’s house on its west. Requests for the house include: encourages the family to spend time together (rather than isolating anyone) / spatial / bright with plenty of natural light.

Plot
The family space is arranged at the center of the site. The private space is arranged at the edge of the site , and they connect gradually by the one volume. Distance among rooms and curved spaces provide adequate privacy. Each rooms are indistinctly connected to each other via central space.

© Toshiyuki Yano

Indistinct
That indistinct connection is the key concept of this house, expressing the spatial relationship (not on/off relationship) among the rooms. Like a photo out of focus.

Diagram

Invisible one room
You can grasp the space visually if the entire space is visible. You can let your consciousness develop the space if not all is visible. Like walking in a path, not sure of what is ahead.

Plan

Ambiguously
Spaces divided by straight lines relate to rationally. Spaces connected with curving lines relate to ambiguously. Like a drop of milk in coffee.

Section and Elevation

Connection
What interests us is how rooms connect to each other, more than how a room is made. What interests us is the “air” that curves, crosses, and diffracts. Like a cloud, constantly moving without having definite shape.
Cite:
King , Victoria . "Oshikamo / Katsutoshi Sasaki + Associates" 16 Nov 2011. ArchDaily. Accessed 16 Nov 2011.

© Hiroshi Tanigawa

Architects: Mizuishi Architects Atelier
Location: Tokyo, Japan
Structural Engineer: Kentaro Nagasaka
Lighting Designer: Tatsuoki Nakajima
Contractor: Hirano-kensetu
Project Year: 2011
Project Area: 55.24 sqm
Photographs: Hiroshi Tanigawa

 
This is a very small house built on the triangle site where the river and the road were crossed and made to the acute angle. For the dead-end road, it became a plan in various regulations for obtaining special permission.

© Hiroshi Tanigawa

Floor Plan

Residents are husband and wife and a little girl. Although it was a novel site of a limited area, since a river was faced through a bank and a promenade, I would like to design various relations with the river. The building is the form that cut an acute angle part on a triangle plan derived from the site. Furthermore, it got the maximum volume of hip roof of three planes in restriction of setback-line.

© Hiroshi Tanigawa

Although the level0 floor was a private space,it limits for dividing with the curtain of a race in the door, stairs, storage, etc. except for a bathroom. It enabled it to feel a spread. The level+1 floor is devided into small areas by structural narrow walls,being connected with one by the ridgeline of a roof. So there are different open feelings and the relations with the river each.

© Hiroshi Tanigawa

That is
1. dining & kitchen / The west side space up the stairs is the largest planarly, and has high ceiling with a feeling of rise towards the roof top.
2. living / The central space is low ceilinged,and has full-opening windows on both sides as a balcony and the bay window that spreads outward with a feeling of floating
3. spare room / The east side space in the deepest is a form which is narrowed down to the direction of flow of the river,and is a space watching the light to insert earlier of the abyss..
4. loft / The space with two skylights is a space looking down at the river and looking up at the sky.
The limited volume snuggles up to the river, and I think that I was able to design various space that can live while looking for a favorite place to stay.

© Hiroshi Tanigawa

Text provided by Mizuishi Architects Atelier

Cite:
Jett , Megan . "House in Horinouchi / Mizuishi Architects Atelier" 24 Oct 2011. ArchDaily. Accessed 24 Oct 2011.

© Sadao Hotta

Architect: mihadesign
Location: Sinjuku, Tokyo, Japan
Project Area: Site Area:84.75 sqm, Building Area: 50.66 m2, Floor Area Ratio: 88.39 m2
Structure Engineer: ejiri structure design office
Project Year: 2011
Photographer: Sadao Hotta

 

© Sadao Hotta

This house is for a couple and a girl and located at Shinjuku, in Tokyo. The site is a long and thin rectangle shape of 4.5m width and 18m depth from south to north. By the three bearing wall, the long and thin volume of two layers is divided into four in the direction of the short. The bearing walls have some holes which residents, light and wind pass through. In order to take in the sunlight as much as possible, the roof has zigzag form and has top light which delivers the light and wind to the ground floor. Each spaces are lined up from the entrance in an order of the level of privacy: Public spaces such as living and dining and kitchen comes first, and then more private spaces such as restroom and bathrooms will appear deep in the house.

© Sadao Hotta

You can go to the first floor by going up the stairs at the living room, going through the hole of the wall, and watching the dining room underneath. When you go back to the south via the corridor with closet and study space, you will arrive at the girl’s space. When you go to the north, you will be at bedroom. The design of the relationship between well and floor, wall and ceiling, and the shape of open ceiling space and windows had been adjusted so that people will feel inclined to go and see beyond the walls of this deep house.
Text provided by mihadesign.

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© Sadao Hotta



© Sadao Hotta

Cite:
Henry , Christopher . "Gate / mihadesign" 14 Oct 2011. ArchDaily. Accessed 15 Oct 2011.