House in Hakone, 2000-2001 return of a Japanese spatiality The house is located in Sengokuhara, Hakone, which is the most famous hot-spring town in Japan. Since it used to be the bottom of a lake resulted from ancient volcanic activities, the somma is appreciated in a distant view from the residential area. The site is a rectangular shape of 30 m x 39 m, on which a public road is to the east, while a private walkway is to the north. > House in Hakone, 2000-2001 The client, a sculptor who lived in the downtown of Tokyo, made up his mind to move his artist life into the place of calm and rich in nature for the sake of concentrating on producing works.
In the district of Hakone, architectural design is severely restricted from a specific National Environmental Law by the Japanese Government. In a word, it is oriented to make a traditional Japanese architecture; such as, a shape of pitched roof, deep eaves, greenery plans, etc. Owing to these conditions as well as considering the client’s request to build a house of, so-called, “modernism,” I struggled how to reconcile a certain type of Japanese traditional building and modern houses based upon Europe. > On a line from the last work, “House in Matsu bara,” I was conscious of designing whole site, not specifically designing a single building in a site. First of all, I proposed a single story house with a simple roof shape. It is composed of a couple of 10 m squares side by side; so that it is automatically outlined by 10 m x 20 m area.
The Term Paper on Bonsai: Japanese Tree Art
Many people in the contemporary society have always expressed their desire to connect with nature especially by cultivating certain plants in their compounds but the urban living conditions cannot allow. These, especially in towns have little space around their houses for growing flowers or trees and this greatly applies to those who live in apartments which are compacted or multistoried (Pilgrim, ...
Second, by some conversations with clients, I articulated the whole site in order to decide what kind of activity is appropriate for which portion in the site. Third, I set up walls to reserve specific places; such as, the place for sleeping, bathing, and working. Living, dining and kitchen are to be remained, where the residents can share with even guests invited to the house. At this stage, there is no difference between exterior and interior.
> Finally, I deliberately put the 10 m x 20 m enclosure upon the articulated site. The perimeter is basically defined by glass wall, so that each place has each characteristic garden of ground undulations, trees, and water. Just a part of the enclosure is a concrete wall on carport because of taking care of some possible noise from atelier to the neighbors. In terms of making space, I regarded each place for each activity as a platform; then change its level from one to another under a totally flat ceiling.
With the interaction of wall articulations, a spatial sequence can be appreciated not by completely opaque but by slightly overlooking to somewhere beyond. > Structurally, the roof skeleton is like a huge umbrella of steel construction. Each square has a single round-shaped column on each center, so that the house has only two columns for carrying the vertical load. While the concrete walls scatter the horizontal load in the case of earthquakes. As a result, the mullion on the perimeter bears nothing in structure, which enables to use a wooden material.
Using wooden materials along the perimeter is quite effective against the sulfuric air because the acid air around the hot-spring area makes metals easily rotten. > In terms of materials, the upper floor from entrance, gallery, dining, to kitchen, is covered by marble; on the other, the lower is by oil-finished flooring. The living can be divided into two portions when a huge red sliding door is pulled out to make a guest room for sleeping. The bathroom has it own tiny garden for protecting privacy. > In the design process, I suffered a dilemma between modern design required by client and design code orienting traditional Japanese archi-type obliged by the government.
The Term Paper on Frank Lloyd Wright Architecture Buildings Style
... Lloyd Wright's designs of houses, offices, furniture, fabrics, textiles and graphic arts we wouldn't be where we are today in modernized architecture and ... close to Spring Green, Wisconsin intimately, and both the area and the family who had lived in it had ... that is unnecessary, including interior walls. Wrights second principle called for as many different styles of house as there were styles of ...
Therefore, the agenda in the house design was how I can reconcile between them. Here I was very conscious of the modern line from Wright to Mies. Indeed, Wright was influenced by Japanese architecture at the Columbian Exposition in 1893, and developed his design method with such a representative term as “to break rooms.” After Berl age introduced Wright into the architectural society in Europe, Mies surely gained the information through the friendship with Van Does burg in the Dutch society. > In the end, Mies broke Wright’s hard and heavy walls as well as rooms of “Brick Country House” projects in 1923-24 towards Barcelona Pavilion in 1929; then into a simple glass box house in the States.
However in the very bottom current, there must be a spatiality of Japanese architecture that Wright sensed almost a century ago. Here, the spatiality returns to the home country through the historical filter of Occidental manners and materials in architecture. > Under the theory of “inter-textual ity,” I may admit that architectural design is also woven with some former designs. Now all I can do is to reflect my own identity upon architecture, not to make a simple inquiry into my own originality.
Between architecture of moderns and of traditional Japan, I thought it essential to find a balancing point into something not by someone else. house+atelier site area: 330 sqm. building area: 100 sqm. total floor area: 100 sqm.
principal. Satoshi Okada project manager. Lisa Tomi yama, Eis uke Aida.
