Life takes place between the outlines of the objects. Cooking and eating, bathing and doing laundry―everything fills in the string of voids with clusters of household items. The family of objects appears to have looked for and found their places within the structure, as if settled in response to its form. Amongst and between them, the two cats slink about and wind from an open window weaves through, as light from outside swallows everything together. Both life and nature are in tension with the architecture. They exist together and sometimes connect, but never blend. The architecture triggers life and life strengthens the architecture. The goal was to create that kind of relationship in this house.

Text provided by the architects.

The north side wall in the building has skewed to create a space that connects to the adjacent vacant site. Along that wall, the heights and depth of each floor had adjusted throughout the building. These misaligned three walls and 7-floor slabs with different heights and depths overlap each other without breaking up their top and bottom ends. This structure creates openings that bring in natural light and breeze, but by avoiding views into other houses. There is no opening to the south side; thus, strong sunlight does not penetrate inside.

However, natural light reaches in all day from over the north side wall, allowing rich senses of time, weather, and season changes. As it goes further back in the house, which is more distanced from the openings, service functions such as kitchen and bathroom are located. In contrast, as it approaches the front road, the openings get wider and bigger, closer to the outside. In the middle of a big city, the site is not big enough to create a garden or balcony with adequate space. Instead, this house is designed to have large openings that make the inside space like a garden or balcony when it’s fully opened.

The floors do not fully function with one piece alone, as for how small each is, but it shows its complete potential when used along with other displaced floors. It turns into a seat, table, shelf, and ceiling. Almost no place has dedicated use, and the entire space in the house is made with the relationship of misaligned floors. First, entering from the front door and, as it proceeds up, gives a sense of gradational shifts in the space. By placing human-scaled stairs and furniture inside a strong and large ancient building-like structure of reinforced concrete, the building is suited for human use. Moreover, it aims to create an affluent experience that exceeds that of its functional suit alone.

This simple structure of offsetting walls and laying floors at different heights allows them to interact, making it possible to create an openness that seems much more than the actual total floor area of 60m2. This is one big room built due to the reality of living in a city center and the possibility of a small site. The things far away and close coexist, and sometimes it’s separate and sometimes repetitive. This relationship is formed into a structure and a home.

Text provided by the architect.

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.

The floor openings connect these spaces vertically throughout the building.

The terrace on the bathroom floor provides a visual connection to the sky from the living room below. It also can be viewed from the bedroom and roof balcony above. The kitchen/dining room is daylit both by the light entering its own window, as well as from windows above.

The supporting structure is entirely exposed and was designed to be as small-scale as possible, in order to match the scale of the furniture. The floors consist of 25 mm-thick corrugated steel decking riveted to the underside of a 3.2 mm-thick steel plate, onto which a 30 mm-thick concrete was poured (a mere 58.2 mm in total thickness). The light structure improves the sense of spaciousness and airiness within this very compact home.

The vertical configuration creates a spacious living in a densely inhabited city.

Text provided by the architect.