Garden House

Jordi Costa — Wed, 29 Nov 2023 09:19:38 +0000

Architects: Ryue Nishizawa Photography: Iwan Baan Construction Period: 2012 Location: Tokyo, Japan

This building, in a highly dense district packed with high-rise condominiums and office buildings, is the new home to two women in the editorial business who wish to work and live in this historical environment. They specifically request to include an office, common living space, private room for each, a guest room, and a bathroom. I got an impression that it involves a program that is somewhere between an office, and a residence, or a dormitory. The site is an extremely small rectangle of 8×4 m. To the right, the left, and across the street are large buildings of over 30 m of height standing with no setback making the site much like a small dark valley surrounded by mountainous construction.

Suspecting that a building with regular frame walls would result in narrowing the already narrow usable space of the site, I looked for a possibility to create a building with alternative method. My final decision of structure consisted of a vertical layer of horizontal slabs to create a building without walls. A garden and a room are distributed as a pair on each floor – every room, whether it is the living room, private room or the bathroom, has a garden of its own so that the residents may go outside to feel the breeze, read a book or cool off in the evening and enjoy an open environment in their daily life.

Each room is smaller than the slab allowing for freedom in determining the relationship between the room and the garden regardless of the floor level. The entirety is a wall-less transparent building designed to provide an environment with maximum sunlight despite the dark site conditions. A delight in life is felt as you ascend the light, well ventilated residence that is nestled in this exceptional location in the dense urban fabric.

Text provided by the architect.

La entrada Garden House se publicó primero en Global Spaces.

Ochoquebradas house

Jordi Costa — Mon, 30 May 2022 13:03:08 +0000

Architects: Ryue Nishizawa Photography: Ryue Nishizawa Construction Period: 2020 Location: Los Vilos, Chile

This is a house planned for a beautiful site on the shore of the Pacific Ocean in Chile. The project involves eight Japanese architects invited to design one house each, together with eight houses designed by Chilean architects. A residential development of sixteen houses is formed, to which this house belongs.

The location of this house is at the tip of a small promontory into the Pacific. The configuration matches the shape of the promontory landscape, in a long narrow space with floors that rise and fall in accordance with the contours of the site, sheltered with a roof above.

The roof descends to the ground in places and gently divides the space beneath into segments, which determine the form. There are no walls to speak of- it is like a building of ground and roof only in the midst of abundant nature. Toward the tip of the cape facing the magnificent views is the public zone including the dining room, while private spaces such as bedroom are placed away from the sea in calmness.

In terms of structure, arches that connect diagonally-arranged landing points make it possible to create large spans while opening various directions toward the surrounding landscape. The space comes with a diversity of openness that can never be achieved with classic arch structures such as the vault roof.

With sinuous connection the roof gives a sense of volume seemingly smaller than the actual floor area, while creating a landscape-like continuity that aims for harmony with the wild and beautiful natural setting.

Text provided by the architect.

La entrada Ochoquebradas house se publicó primero en Global Spaces.

Ryue Nishizawa archivos - Global Spaces

Garden House

Ochoquebradas house