Here's an extremely pointy apartment block by Japanese architects EASTERN Design Office.

The four-storey block with a blue facade, named On The Corner, is located in the Shiga Prefecture, Japan, and occupies a triangular slice of land.

Squares of stone, concrete, glass and glass blocks create a patchwork of materials on the building’s exterior.

Seven apartments are housed within the block, each with one bedroom and an open-plan living room.

Pointed terraces are provided in the building’s most acutely angled corner.

EASTERN Design Office have designed a number of residential buildings, most of which feature unusually shaped windows - see more of the stories here.

Photography is by Koichi Torimura.

Here's a longer description from the architects:

On the corner by EASTERN design office

A castle where the boys and girls of the story of Michael Ende could be entering. It is a triangular building configured by the square elements!

The site is a manufacturing area in Youkaichi City in Shiga Prefecture. There are many big factories in this town. A lot of immigrants from South America live here among the local people.

This is a residential area as well an industrial area. It is also a popular drinking area where many bars and restaurants for such common people are scattered. There is a highway interchange nearby the town. The shape of the lot is a sharp triangle which is unusual for building a house.

The site is a wedge-shaped flatiron lot which remained at a corner where two streets meet at an acute angel. It was left behind neither residential nor for industrial development. No one wanted to buy it, and the public sector would not invest to change it into a park: a lot remained.

The elevation of this building takes the shape of the triangle plot. It is a triangular residential complex of 13 meters height with the base line 23m x height 12m x oblique line 26m. It is a typical tenanted apartment house with seven rooms, 1-3rd two units on each floor and one on the 4th floor.

Each room is composed of a living room of 13 m2, two bed rooms with 13 m2 and 9m2, a prefabricated bathroom, a kitchen system and a toilet. They are planned to be easy to rent for town people.

The concrete which serves as a structure is designed carefully. Other than that specific materials are not used here. The exterior wall is made out of square cut stone, concrete and glass formed like scattered cards on it. They are bound by a “cross” so that the spread out material would not disjoin.

It looks like a present, a toy box or a castle where the boys and girls of the story of Michael Ende could be entering. It is a triangular building configured by the square elements. The cross confines the power of the mixed materials into one.

A shuffle of stones, concretes, and glass. Keen edge of each material is too sharp. A shuffle of mass and void. The design “on the corner” consists of blue and the cross.

A composition of line and plane surface is created by the clearly distinguished edges of the material.

The confusing imagination is created to make the so far disregarded place interesting, which lies at the corner of messy scenery in an inner city

It belongs to no one.
It is nothing.
It does not belong to anything.
It does not belong to any country.

The edge of the triangular pyramid is like a wrecked boat, a fictional tip of a boat as if it were escaping from town. Where on earth is here?

A corner that makes you feel you are nowhere at the end of the world, where no one can go further anymore. It is far from the center of town, a place which makes you wonder where you are. It is a place to make the town to be nowhere but only here, and it makes you feel like a distinguished person.

We want to highlight the discarded lot from the urban framework by emphasizing its shape, building architecture similar to illusion. An illusion required by the town people. Reality that is similar to an illusion that one town has something to do with someone.

It seems as if this illusion deceives people to obscure their eyesight and feel invited to another world. It is pretentious, yet it is surrealistic too.

Data: On the corner
Location: Shiga,Japan
Completion: 2011
Client: TOYO-KAIHATSU Co., ltd
Site area: 261m2
Total floor area: 567 m2
Structure planning: HOJO STRUCTURE RESEARCH INSTITUTE
Constructor: Okudakomuten Co., Ltd

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Japanese architects EASTERN Design Office tend to design houses with unconventional windows. Here's their latest one in Kyoto.

The L-shaped glazing that punctures the facade of the residence creates an illuminated frame around the entrance.

Sumi ink stains the rendered exterior of the house, creating a dark outline around the front elevation.

This ink colours the entire exposed side wall, which features a series of square windows at staggered heights.

Aspects of the building are highlighted in red and pink, including the front door and a thin exterior canopy.

A ledge below the first floor ceiling inside makes a perfect route for the client's cats.

Other houses on Dezeen by EASTERN Design Office feature windows that are circular, slit-shaped and jagged - see all the projects here.

We've also featured another house that includes dedicated routes for the family cats - see it here.

Photography is by Koichi Torimura.

Here's a description of the house from the architects:

Keyhole House

EASTERN design office

The facade of this house has the shape of a keyhole.

A key to open “my house”, which is standing along a narrow street of a crowded town, is designed as a key itself on the façade of this house. A house can be called a key, which will open up your life happily. Such a small key, this house is a key!

The site is in Kyoto, Japan. It is a small house for four people and two cats. It has only 100 square meters of floor space. It is standing alone in the corner of a small parking lot like a table left behind at the seaside.

• The façade is marked by a window shaped like a key.
• Mortar with sumi ink is applied to the exterior wall.
• Simple color coding. Red and purple are used as an accent.
• The triangle roof.
• Random arrangement of small windows.
• The edge to make the shape of this house clearer.

There is a thin steel eave which is fixed to the façade of this house as if it is floating, and a key-shaped slit like a “picture”, crossing over the eave. A red wine-colored door. These are laid out like a beautiful pattern designed on a jewel box.

You sometimes will see a cat lying by the window at this house. You wonder what she is watching. Do you still have a naïve heart with a key to open this house?

Data: Keyhole House
Location: Kyoto, Japan
Architect: EASTERN design office
Site Area: 90.81㎡
Total Floor Area: 103.47㎡
Structural Engineering: EASTERN design office
Contractor: arcc

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This house on the outskirts of Ise, Japan is by architects EASTERN design office and has been raised on a concrete block to afford views of the sea.

A House Awaiting Death is a concrete construction and sits 8.6 metres above sea level, looking east over a breakwater.

The facade is is punctuated by a row of irregularly shaped windows, positioned higher or lower in the wall depending on where the client intends to sit and stand.

The interior has wooden floors and ceilings, and is divided by a V-shaped partition.

The internal walls are punctuated by slits that line up with external windows.

Photographs are by Koichi Torimrua.

Here's some more from the architect:

“I will die in 15 years. It will be a house awaiting that death. The building is fine as long as it lasts 15 years. Something small would be good.”

“I have found the place.” A patch of land on a peninsula facing East. “I’m glad the land faces East. I hate the sunset.”

“When I die it won’t be sunset, it will be sunrise. When the final moment comes, I will face the sea and depart on a ship flashing towards death. It’ll be a time revealed after death.”

This is what the client ordered for his house. A view of the magnificent sea in the east where the sun rises.

This is the land he chose to live out his final years. The portion of the sea we have captured encompasses the peninsula that appears on both sides of the site.

A four-meter wide gravel and dirt road runs in front of the site. On the other side of the road is a park-golf course where several elderly neighbors enjoy their leisure time.

There is a seashore behind the breakwater wall. If this were a standard house the sea would barely be visible from the site.

The ebb and flow of the tide changes with the seasons and the time, but the distance from the site to the waves is generally about 150 meters.

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The height of the floor is nearly 8.6 meters from the horizon and was chosen as the perfect height to view the waves from a sitting position.

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The client said to us, “The floor of this house must be raised, so you are the right architects to design such a house.”

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The coastline where the site is located is beyond the scope of this round map. This round map encompasses the area of our activity in Japan.

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This project takes us to a beach beyond sublime Suzuka mountain range, yonder past the ravines of the Ise Penninsula, and exceeds the boundaries of this circle!

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Early morning light streams through polygonal windows. With the overlapping windows and accumulation of light and shadow, the entire building erupts in a hymn to the morning.

See also:

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Mountains and Opening House by EASTERN Design Office	Horizontal House by EASTERN Design Office	Slit Court by EASTERN Design Office

The post A House Awaiting Death by
EASTERN Design Office appeared first on Dezeen.

This house in Takarazuka city by Japanese architects EASTERN Design Office has a studio supported above the residence on two mounds of crushed marble.

Called Mountains and Opening House, the project on a sloping site is a home and studio for a footwear designer.

The living areas are on the lower floor, sheltered on three sides by the earth of the sloping site.

Meanwhile the studio above cantilevers out and overlooks the Osaka Plain.

More about EASTERN Design Office on Dezeen:

Horizontal House (October 2009)
Slit Court (October 2009)
MON Factory/House (October 2009)
Slit House (October 2009)

Photographs are by Koichi Torimura.

Here's some more information from the architects:

Mountain/Opening

Deck on the Mountain

The Material of the Mountain

The outside (exterior) mountain is formed into a mound by piling up soil excavated from the slope. The surface of the mound is a type of raw material made from crushed marble called “Kansui”. Glittering fragments of crushed marble on a whity surface shine brilliantly. There are two white mountains. The living quarters are inside the white mountain while atop the white mountainous wave is a deck.

One of the two white mountains functions as a structural support for this building, while the other mountain conceals the bathroom. These two mountains are also set into the living spaces of the residential quarters.

The Structure of the Deck

The framework of the upper floor is steel and the lower floor is reinforced concrete. The upper floor evokes a sense of being on the deck of a boat and in order to achieve this feeling architectural columns and walls are designed as to make one unaware of their existence.

Entering the house from the northern road, a 14meter wide opening and the 16.5 meter x3 meter terrace outside create the feeling that your own body is floating in the scenery. This is a deck.

To achieve this, we used two different methods.

1. Revaluation of the trusses. It is not immediately apparent; however, since horizontal slits were cut into the northern wall, trusses were set into it. It is like the structure of a bridge. Bridges are set into the upper part of the horizontal slits which allow the floor to float in the air while concealing the structural device.
2. Concealing the structural members in the curves Columns are in the curves forming the openings and this also is concealed. The curves of the openings respond each other with the curves of the mountains. A fantasy created by the repeated curves appearing over and over again.

Living Space + Opening + Mountain

The lower floor fully utilizes the slope of the mountain. The hidden areas become mountains、while the areas that is required light become valleys. These rolling undulations are all part of the design.

Two Horizontal Eaves

There are two thin iron plate eaves on the openings: one with the length of 14 meters on the upper floor and the other with 16.5 meters on the lower floor.

The upper and lower floors are used in different ways. The upper floor is a design room.The lower floor houses residential quarters. That is there are public spaces within the residential quarters.

The demand of how the spaces should be is different; therefore, the structure is also different.

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Taking balance to unify the upper and lower portions, the curves of the mountain are made continuous with the curves of the openings.

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There are two thin iron plate eaves on the openings: one with the length of 14 meters on the upper floor and the other with 16.5 meters on the lower floor.

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The thickness of the iron plate is only 9mm. The straight line of these two eaves emphasizes the expansive spreading horizontal width of this house. Consequently, this makes you forget that the house is on a sloped site.

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Blue and White

The overall whiteness is not just a general white coat of paint. It is white mixed with blue.

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This is because we want white that　corresponds with the blue sky. In addition, we intend this white to reflect the light of fragments of marble scattered in the raw material which covers on the surface of two newly built mountains.

Anna Nakamura+Taiyo Jinno/EASTERN design office

See also:

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Horizontal House by EASTERN Design Office	Slit House by EASTERN Design Office	MON Factory/House by EASTERN Design Office

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by EASTERN Design Office appeared first on Dezeen.

Here's another housing project with slits for windows by Japanese architects EASTERN Design Office, this time in Shiga, Japan.

Called Horizontal House, the project is located next to a small village of six houses.

Fifteen horizontal bands of windows allow views over the adjacent cluster of houses, rice fields, a river and the distant mountains.

The shape of the exterior walls mimics the perimeter of the village.

More by EASTERN Design Office on Dezeen:

Slit Court
MON Factory/House
Slit House

Photographs are by Koichi Torimura.

Here's some more information from

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Horizontal House

Do they really live beyond this? The mountain village appears when having started a little anxious so. The Horizontal House is here. This house does not look like the house.

The shape of the house traces the boundary of the village. The village consists of six houses in all.

The shape of the village could be done by making it by stone wall in old times.

The project site is located on the north edge of the village that is in the prominent place, and makes the face of the village.

There is a position to observe the village from afar. Our intention is to form scenery from there. The shape to extend naturally the stone wall of old times. The horizontal slit carved there. It becomes familiar with the scenery of the village surprisingly.

When you enter the house, you will be surprised at the sequence of the view that the slits cut out and the spaciousness there. Because of the horizontal slits surrounding the whole house there is scenery wherever you see.

The horizontal slits that overlap in succession at the up and down are 15 totals and the total length of 115m.

The village in the deep place is seen in the slit in the north.

Sequence of the mountain continues far away. Footpath in rice field and the person's coming and going, which disappear into the mountains. The river is seen in the slit in the east.

Children bubble over to catching sweetfish there. The Shinto shrine lurks under a large Japan cedar of 400 years.

Tsukiaimichi(a communal alley) can be seen through the slit in the shoji in the south. The roofs of the village and the zelkova big trees overlap in the scenery. A mountain comes in the scenery in succession over that.

The shrine where the forest and this village are defended is seen in the slit in the west.

There is the one "Tsukiaimichi". Though the road belongs to somebody of the village, everyone of village may freely pass through.

The person in the village stroll their dog on "Tsukiaimichi", they stand chatting, and it takes a shortcut.

The client gives importance on "Tsukiaimichi". And she wishes to defend the privacy without closing the view to outside.

The stone wall is extended. Thus the retaining wall is made. It forms "Tsukiaimichi" surrounding the site at the position without the pressure feeling. "Tsukiaimichi" goes up to the courtyard through the retaining wall where the width was narrowed once. The retaining wall lowers gradually and disappears on ground. Then view opens rapidly. But the stone of 170cm height wall is inside to obstruct the view into the house from passersby. And the stone of 120cm height wall appears. Here is the entrance. The shoji where the slit was put so as not to see the inside faces the courtyard.

All those become like "Invisible Layers" between "Tsukiaimichi" and the life scene, which makes the ambiguous boundary there.

Anna Nakamura + Taiyo Jinno / EASTERN design office
Horizontal house
Location: Shiga Japan
Total floor area: 311.50m2
Design team: EASTERN design office + Jin Sasaki
Photographer: Koichi Torimura
Constructor: Marusho Co., Ltd

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