Aoba's house
Main use housing
Location Aoba Ward, Yokohama City
Site area 128.43m2
Total floor area 102.70m2
Structural wooden
Structural design OUVI inc.
Construction Sanyo Kogyo Co., Ltd.
Furniture KENRIKI
Design period March 2011-August 2011
Construction period September 2011-December 2011
Taken by Hideya Amemiya
The site is located in a relatively new residential area, the so-called commuter town. It is a flagpole site surrounded by the wall of the neighboring house in all four directions via the passage in the site about 10m from the front road. The surrounding houses are dominated by rules that do not know who decided, the windows face the same direction, and the gardens are lined up in the same place. However, when observing from a slightly different angle, light was shining from different directions in the morning, noon, and evening through the gap between the adjacent building and the garden on this site facing the southeast. In other words, I realized that on the flagpole site, keeping a distance from the gaps in the adjacent land without paralleling it with the surroundings is an important point to create "comfort".
Therefore, a square volume facing north, south, east, and west was placed at a distance from the gap in the adjacent land, and the rest was superimposed on the volume along the shape of the site. Similar to the way the light enters when visiting the site, there is a slight distance between the two volumes inside and a gap is provided. The result is two triangular gardens and a slit of light. Outside, light is taken in through the gaps in the neighboring houses so as not to give a feeling of oppression to the surrounding houses. As a result, light is cast throughout the house through the gap between the two volumes.
On the other hand, in the interior space, the planning was done with a logic different from the composition of the appearance with the angle swayed. The purpose is to create a home that can accommodate the changing family and lifestyle. The order of distance from the entrance to the living room to the bedroom is an important factor that determines the public and private life in the house. In particular, the living room, which is the largest place in the house, and the garden connected to it are the most important relationship to create a space with depth. For the private room space on the second floor, we planned spaces with different sizes and openness depending on the angled walls so that they can be used properly according to the purpose and change of living. At the end, the inner wall is a wall (partition) separated from the structure so that it can be returned to a large studio as a space for two couples.
The light and the garden created from the gap, the living room connected to the garden, the changing private room, the light and the air and the line of sight, the texture that touches the skin. All operations land on "comfort". This is a physical sensation that is universal and timeless.
Houses around this site have all of the windows and gardens facing south direction.We felt like most designers agreed upon a certain rule in design. When we first visited this site, we were surprised that it was surrounded by houses and it was a very dark But we found the sunlight from the gaps of the houses. We thought that setting up proper distances among houses is important to get enough sunlight for this site.
At first, we made two volumes in south and north sides. We decided to rotate the center square volume to 45 degrees to make enough distance from the houses in the north side. On the other hand, south side of this house is positioned along the At the same time we provided a gap between two volumes. As a result, it created two triangle gardens and provided some light from the small opening in the inside.We mean that this house can get enough sunlight from the gaps of the neighboring / surrounding houses in the outside and gaps from the two volumes from the inside.
On the other side, there is another concept to make in planning. Each rooms are arranged in certain order putting into consideration how family / users are going to use them in daily life. There are no doors provided for each spaces. We created a common The entrance, kitchen, dinning room, living room, kids room and bedroom were placed right next to each other.The relation of two gardens and the living space is the most important. We notice that the family spends. the longest time in the living space so we made the design more flexible.
The living space could be extended to the garden to provide a wider space.The living space in the first floor gets enough sunlight from the small opening from the inside and two gardens which have enough distance from the neighboring houses. That makes the space bright the whole time during the day.