Overlap no Ma House丨日本冲绳丨IGArchitects

Architects:IGArchitects

Area:72m²

Year:2026

Photographs:Ooki Jingu

Category:Houses

Design Team:IGArchitects

Structural Engineering:Yousuke Misaki EQSD

Construction:Yukimitsu Shimoji, FUN SHARE Ltd.

City:Okinawa

Country:Japan

Text description provided by the architects. This house is planned in a quiet settlement in Uruma, in the central part of Okinawa's main island. Having finished raising their children, the clients sought an environment where they could live more in accordance with themselves as they entered the next stage of their lives. Although the house was expected to accommodate a wide range of activities—work, hobbies, and daily life—the design did not begin by organizing these demands simply as functions or rooms. Instead, it took as its starting point how the architecture might respond to the environmental conditions specific to this place: intense sunlight, humid air, and winds that shift direction with the seasons. Rather than creating a container that satisfies individual requirements, the aim was to establish a frame that could receive both life and environment, and continue to evolve over time.

The project did not seek to achieve openness merely by creating transparency toward the exterior. Rather than relying on glass to visually merge inside and outside, the intention was to give the architecture a different form of openness. A clue was found in The Blank Signature by René Magritte, which depicts a condition in which the space beyond is perceived even when it is not fully visible. Although the trees standing in the foreground appear to interrupt the landscape, the fragments overlap in such a way that the space extending behind them can still be sensed. Here, it is the very act of interruption that produces spatial continuity.

The building consists of a field of RC wall-columns standing in succession, covered by a large roof above. Responding to the slope of the site, the roof tilts gently along the terrain, shielding the interior from direct sunlight, collecting rain, and creating a stable field of shade beneath it. It acts as a shelter protecting daily life from Okinawa's severe climate, while also generating an intermediate zone—reminiscent of the traditional amahaji eaves—that softly connects inside and outside.

Within the interior, the wall-columns do not function to divide space but are arranged as elements that overlap it. They operate as mediators that allow the presence of what lies beyond to be sensed. Through their layering, uses are not clearly separated but instead bleed into one another. In this way, a multilayered spatial condition emerges within what is essentially a single room. Through the continuity of space, lines of sight, presences, light, and wind extend deeper into the interior and eventually connect to the exterior of the building. Uses are therefore not fixed. Semi-outdoor spaces gradually extend toward the outdoors, and the ways in which the spaces are used continue to evolve in response to changing environmental conditions.

This architecture is not conceived as a device that unilaterally controls the environment, but as a frame through which the inhabitants can respond to it. Rather than defining a clear moment of "completion," the frame alone is anchored to the site, allowing life to accumulate upon it over time. By refraining from prescribing meanings or uses in advance, the space remains in a state of incompletion, where unexpected shifts and margins can be continually reinterpreted through everyday actions.

In this way, the inhabitants' own landscape slowly takes shape over time. Furniture, plants, and the operation of openings—ordinary acts of daily life—temporarily give meaning to the frame, and the interpretation of the space evolves as time passes.

Overlap no Ma is therefore both a house for a particular client and an attempt to reconsider architecture as a frame that stands between climate and life. Without relying on visual transparency, openness is achieved by cutting and reconnecting space. Entrusting itself to the environment of Okinawa, the architecture is expected to mature over time. Even after it leaves the hands of its current inhabitants, it may accept other residents or roles, continuing to stand on this land—an architecture generous enough to endure beyond a single life.

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