This house in Hiroshima city by Japanese firm Suppose Design Office has a central staircase branching into wooden volumes that create a series of rooms and platforms.
Called House in Fukawa, the project aims to make the property feel larger by obscuring views of its boundaries, giving the impression that the maze of doorways, platforms, enclosed rooms and overhangs might continue on and on.
See all our stories about Suppose Design Office »
See more stories about houses »
The information that follows is from Suppose Design Office:
House in Fukawa
The house is placed at suburbs in Hiroshima, and designed for 4 members of a family with two kids.
Because there are a lot of traffics around the area, we considered the house, which is closed from outside as much as possible but still keep its space open without any pressure of the separation from the outside.
People can feel a place bigger more and more if they could not figure out the size of it, such as the sky and the ocean. In other words, people think a space is big when they would felt the area as if it is continuing forever.
There is- a staircase at the center of the house. It is surrounded by walls as an another construction, and it is built up to the ceiling. It stands as a core of the house. From the pillar all rooms are connected as each. The spaces are placed randomly with various levels and angles. The inside with layers of the rooms is like a place under a tree with leaves or like a cave in a mountain.
Moreover, the place at the top of each room could also engage people as terraces. Because of the use of the top the boxes, there are various space relations in the house, such as a room and a room, a room and a terrace, and a terrace and a terrace.
The house is separated from the outside environment, however the dwelling inside could create space like continuing forever with the center construction standing like a big tree. We believe residents could enjoy to live in the house with a comfort like in a nature environment, which people could feel and imagine the scale of the space.
This housing structure is timber construction. And finishing of every floor is as follows;
Ground floor:
floor: trawel mortar + Wax
wall: coniferous tree plywood t=9.0 + enamel paint (cantle, coniferous tree plywood t=9.0 + oil stain paint)
ceiling: coniferous tree plywood t=9.0 + enamel paint (cantle, coniferous tree plywood t=9.0 + oil stain paint)
First floor, Second floor:
floor: trawel mortar + Wax
wall: coniferous tree plywood t=9.0 + enamel paint (cantle, coniferous tree plywood t=9.0 + oil stain paint)
ceiling: coniferous tree plywood t=9.0 + enamel paint (cantle, coniferous tree plywood t=9.0 + oil stain paint)
Designed by Makoto Tanijiri.
Design period : April. 2008 - November. 2009
Construction period : November. 2009 - May. 2010
Total floor area is 114.27 sqm.
building area is 50.29 sqm.
Plot area is 124.45sqm.
Click above for larger image
Click above for larger image
Click above for larger image
Click above for larger image
Click above for larger image
Click above for larger image
See also:
.
 |
 |
 |
| House in Minamimachi 3 by Suppose Design Office |
House in Kamiosuga by Suppose Design Office |
House in Koamicho by Suppose Design Office |
Great concept, beautifully articulated. Japanese kids must have nine lives though to survive this cliffhanger house.
always the excellent japonese architecture!
the railing on the first floor ………..does it design according the building by law?? because the gap in between the steel of the railing is huge……….safety purpose should considered!
lol they always surprised me!
everything in this house is excellent but i agree with cubasur that its a little dangerous for kids
A very good project. The way they planned the ground floor is brilliant. The only point I want to stress is that these rooms they created are so tiny! It looks so good with a wide-angle lens in fron of your camera, but in real life it's really small, and it must have been really difficult not to use al the square metres they had available… nothing comes for free.
I agree. Cudos to the creative architects AND the openminded clients! THIS would be close to impossible to sell in northern europe – too unusual, too small, etc. BUT the different view and heights is exactly why this small and closed house seems bigger.
Enlarge all by 40 % or so, add more window, and glass balustrades and this would be very nice in any urban area here as well!!
And would definately stand out!
Although I admire the push in this project towards the use of contrasting building materials and architectural styles, I feel it comes up short of a solid end result, it's like a great film with a bad ending.
I visited the house a month ago during my stay as an intern at Suppose. The huge entrance door is a great enhancement of the otherwise plain facade. When entering the house, everything seems a lot smaller than the pictures show. The ceiling height of the third picture above the TV for instance is only 1.6 metres. When looking up the real space created becomes clear. It seems huge. Being able to look all the way to the upper ceiling gives it an amazing amount of spaciousness. But it’s really when you start walking up the stairs that you lose all coordination. The rooms keep on coming the higher up you go, one after the other. With all rooms on different levels and ladders conacting the rooms with the terrace above, it really seems like a children’s playground. Some safety precautions have been taken, and the children’s rooms have nets in front of the windows, etc. So don’t worry about their safety. Also what Lasse says about selling isn’t really an issue because an average Japanese house lasts for 28 years, just as long as a single family lives in the house. So bad for the environment, but no need for top sell.