This long narrow house in Okinawa, Japan, by Japanese studio Shinichi Ogawa & Associates is divided lengthways into a courtyard and living space.
Called Minimalist House, the property is surrounded by four solid walls and internally divided into three strips.
The first forms a courtyard open to the sky and is separated from the second strip by a glass plane.
This middle section contains bedroom, living room and workspace furniture in one volume.
The third space is enclosed behind a wall and contains the kitchen, utility room and bathroom.
The building is a concrete construction on a three square-metre grid.
Here's some more information from the architects:
MINIMALIST HOUSE
This building is a court house for a couple in Itoman-shi, Okinawa, Japan.
The house is built on a 3M grid module in all XYZ directions, while it is composed of 4 vertical plates as exterior walls and 1 horizontal plate as a roof slab.
A functional layout is created by inserting a void of 3M x 18M which is the court for the house and wall-like furniture into the concrete structure space which dimensions are 3.0M (3x1) high by 9.0M (3x3) wide and by 18.0M (3x6) long.
The space composition is characterized by the division of the house into two areas by a like-wall furniture.
The first area is composed of the living room, dining room, and bedroom as an interior space connecting with the exterior court in a linear arrangement, while the other space is composed of the kitchen, powder room, and study room in a succession.
The shower room, toilet, small court, and various storages are laid out in this wall-like unit, which also incorporates the services ; all spaces combined together create a lifestyle that minimize the division of the space as much as possible.
With regards of the natural light of Okinawa's climate, the internal space connecting with the outside is designed with eaves in order to control the amount of direct sunlight coming inside the house.
The exterior wall is designed to facilitate maintenance by applying photocatalyst paint.
The functional counter unit incorporating the kitchen, powder room, and study room is made of integrally a solid surface "DuPont Corian". Consequently, this house is creating a habitation space that invites to a minimal and a flexible and various lifestyle.
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Wow* this is starning. i need a house like this, but i feel that an additional bathroom and bedroom are required, either than that it perfect*
It seems cool to watch a movie but I have a problem with the lack of a partition between the dining/living room and the bedroom.
Perfect for a single guy, nice life style. Always order from restaurants, never use the kitchen, just come back home for sleeping, and make great partys at weekends.
Well i can agrea to that. Maybe a subtle screen seperating them. But other than that it is stunning imo. O and maybe a tv in the bedroom.
Fantastic! Real innovation.
I love it, It is very pure.
shame it has no view.
a nice wall for some graff
amazing, real minimalistic ambient/concept and form of the building… perfect for a young couple, but i don´t know about a larger family
Difficult to find a good comment on that, really! Hard to beat.
Fantastic this house is perfect to appear on magazines and make parties every weekend!! Also you can get a great tan on your skin all the year. This house doesn’t look comfortable to live, but at least look great !!
It looks very calm and relaxing. Great space, although I personaly would prefer having separated bedroom for more privasy.
I love ogawa’s work but too much of this house could be underground
This is beautiful!…….just perfect, on the other hand, I couldn’t live in it.
Love the back hall but the Living Room being defined by a two seater sofa is a bit of a strech. I would suggest a murphy bed and a dining table that can be folded into the ‘wall’. That will reinforce the idea and will be even more minimal.
clean, crisp, beautiful light
Unbelievable! Just pure class
This house is an orgasm.
It reminds me of the Nakayama House by Tadao Ando.
Basically, they built a room…
It might not be the best house ever but it has a clear idea of what it wants to do and it just does it. Doesn’t copypaste stuff without knowing what’s it about either.
based on it site, I’m not sure why there are no windows to the outside, especially in kitchen and work area…
you should know the place- it is in Okinawa, the same latitude of saudi arabia, or mexico. it is in tropical zone indeed. I imagine people coming from outside sweating all over and welcomed by well-heated space. single-glazed window, concrete slab.
very mies’ean architecture, introverted, intimate space.
a small but long pool alongside the outer wall and a wooden deck
would have been another highlight..
and maybe the outside wall all covered with moss?
I like the overall openness of the project but to be honest I’m not convinced by the proportions of the ‘strips’ – from the images they look bleak and a little claustrophobic. To me it seems like the concept behind the design has taken precedence, over the built form to the detriment of the project.
Boring.
Perfect house to hang yourself. A cage for a contemporary monkey and his tribe of austere friends. Can't imagine anyone dancing and fucking in this space, it feels like a showroom for magazine.
Minimalism to the max. Great concept delivered brilliantly.
But you’ll need a super anal organised neat freak to live in there, one who would never go psycho looking at 4 blank white walls all the time.
very comfortable metro station.
Ahh the Japanese must have so much fun designing these houses.
Beautiful project, but I agree that the lack of partitioning would make it really hard for me to live there. Although it is good that the study/kitchen “workspace” is separate from the living space so maybe it just needs a division for the bedroom. And maybe a more comfortable couch :)
Would love to see it in 6 months given its perfect wall for graffiti.
Would have been really nice if the windows around the dining table opened up too. I think this would really help as there is no space wider than 3m.
No window in the kitchen, no window in the bathroom…. and a view on a wall in the living room; nice minimalist design for a luxury prison
nice place to live; for a robot.
this is like a prison cell, all though a nice one.
Difficult to find a good comment on that, really! Hard to beat.
love it~~~
clean, crisp, beautiful light
I don’t think I could live in it but it is incredibly seductive as an architectural proposition…
is it a good architecture? yes! is it minimalism? definatly ! however, i think that some people forgot how to enjoy life.
This is not architecture , sorry !
Clean details , 3 white walls +1 terraced roof and , of course , Sanaa chairs is quite nothing -no substance !
I liked this better when it was called Rick Joy’s Rubio Studio in Tucson.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kirbylinck/3241563/
Cleaner details, richer sense of materiality.
much unrealized potential for evolving minimalism to ‘livability’…………
conceptually strong…….as sculpture
architecture???
less is not always more………
mmmmm………i’m thinking minimalist that borders on prison cell meeting a fun parlors hall of mirrors
although if that were true there would be bars on the windows and there no tree in the courtyard..
;-)
olga, it is architecture, it is not a home.
Hehe they don’t share a bed. They probably take turns to ‘occupy’ the house… One does nightshift?
Lovely design otherwise. I would attempt to live there but I would fail at the upkeep of keeping it clean.
Nice and clean, but not functional at all. No balance between being secluded or exposed.
found more pics.
http://watology.com/beautiful-minimalist-house
that’s just architecture without any compromises … a window would be nice for living, but worse for the style
… love it
I think it’s beautiful. What would be the point of putting up partitions? Do you really need bedroom privacy in your own home or from your partner?
Oh la Vache ! Simple & so creative ! Stunning ! ! !
This is incredible.
Beautiful! No clutter.
excellent work…. loving it.
It’s architecture? Definitely YES. You must understand the place and the culture where you project an object before shooting comments! This is a masterpiece.