空白花园丨日本东京丨Unemori Architects

Architects:Unemori Architects

Area:103m²

Year:2024

Photographs:Ken'ichi Suzuki

Landscape Contractors:SOIL Co., Ltd.

Construction Company:EIKEN

Lighting:Daiko Electric, Daiko Electric Company Limited

Structural Engineering:Ohno JAPAN

Architects:Unemori Architects

Text:Hiroyuki Unemori

Furniture Contractor:STILLE

Country:Japan

Text description provided by the architects. This house is built in Tokyo for a couple and a child. The site is situated within an area with the risk of flooding from the river running nearby, so the clients requested the house to be prepared for such an emergency. They also wished to have bright interior spaces with a view to greenery and a flexible floor plan to accommodate furniture layout changes for needs such as working from home and future lifestyle changes.

The volume of the building is elevated about four meters above ground level (i.e. above the expected flood level). This allows the first level of the building to be used as a large garden that fills the entire site, where plants of various sizes are planted. The garden is sectionally linked with the second and third-floor levels with two staggered multi-story spaces. It can also be transformed into an interior-like space by closing the mesh curtains around the building. This gives the space a sense of ambiguity–evoking a private, richly vegetated garden and a verandah space under the eaves while having a "public" air of an urban grass field.

This house has a simple, lightweight steel frame structure with bracing. The building is lifted by eight slender columns of 100 mm x 100 mm, while the floor planes on the two-floor levels are suspended from roof beams to eliminate the need to support them by columns from the ground. The ground is widely open by using simple footings and piles to create a flexible exterior space, ready for landscaping and to be transformed over time by utilizing the gradually undulating ground of the site.

Large windows of various sizes are provided on the upper part of the building. They are connected with gradual stairs, allowing one to feel the greenery under the building and the sky above the windows from various height levels. We strived to produce a simple yet calm atmosphere for this house, allowing each family member to choose their place according to the season and climate conditions.

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