Gate by mihadesign

23 October 2011

Architects mihadesign have completed a Tokyo house with sloping skylights, suspended lofts and a staircase that spirals around a wall.

This wall is one of three timber partitions that split the two-storey house, named Gate, into four portions.

The roof zigzags up and down, providing space for two ledge-like lofts above a study and one of two bedrooms.

Externally, ridged green steel clads the the house, which occupies a plot less than five metres wide.

This project shares a few characteristics with a couple of other Japanese houses on Dezeen - see our earlier stories about one with a private balcony concealed behind the facade and another with five roofs that pitch in opposing directions.

Photography is by Sadao Hotta.

The following information was written by the architects:

Gate

This house is for a couple and a girl and located at Shinjuku, in Tokyo.

The site is a long and thin rectangle shape of 4.5m width and 18m depth from south to north.

By the three bearing wall, the long and thin volume of two layers is divided into four in the direction of the short.

The bearing walls have some holes which residents, light and wind pass through.

In order to take in the sunlight as much as possible, the roof has zigzag form and has top light which delivers the light and wind to the ground floor.

Each spaces are lined up from the entrance in an order of the level of privacy: Public spaces such as living and dining and kitchen comes first, and then more private spaces such as restroom and bathrooms will appear deep in the house.

You can go to the first floor by going up the stairs at the living room, going through the hole of the wall, and watching the dining room underneath.

When you go back to the south via the corridor with closet and study space, you will arrive at the girl's space. When you go to the north, you will be at bedroom.

The design of the relationship between well and floor, wall and ceiling, and the shape of open ceiling space and windows had been adjusted so that people will feel inclined to go and see beyond the walls of this deep house.