EASTERN design office
Keyhole House
A House Awaiting Death
Mountain Opening House
Three houses by EASTERN design office. The poetic descriptions are selected excerpts from the architects Anna Nakamura and Taiyo Jinno texts.
Photo © Koichi Torimura
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 facade 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!
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.
Photo © Koichi Torimura
The facade 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.
Photo © Koichi Torimura
Photo © Koichi Torimura
There is a thin steel eave which is fixed to the facade 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.
Photo © Koichi Torimura
Photo © Koichi Torimura
You sometimes will see a cat lying by the window at this house. You wonder what she is watching. Do you still have a naive heart with a key to open this house?
Photo © Koichi Torimura
Sketch courtesy EASTERN design office
Site Are: 90.81 square meters
Total Floor Are: 103.47 square meters
Completed: 2011
Architects: EASTERN design office
Anna Nakamura + Taiyo Jinno
Structural Engineering: EASTERN design office
Contractor: arcc
A House Awaiting Death
Ise, Mie Prefecture, Japan
Photo © Koichi Torimura
“A house awaiting death,” the client said to us.
“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.”
Sketch courtesy EASTERN design office
“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.”
He wants to anchor his life before he sails away from the sea coast flashing towards an unknown shore. This is the house we are going to design.
How do we interpret his message?
We are not only designing a house, but are creating the port from which his liberated mind will depart across the ocean. This is what our work must encompass.
Therefore, this house sees waves. We want to make you think that the waves part of the interior of the house. It is not simply a house open to the sea. We were not satisfied to design a house with a sea view just because the seacoast is a mere 150 meters away. The sea must be incorporated into the open space of the house.
Photo © Koichi Torimura
This form draws in waves. This window captures waves. In this house. Waves … are never the same throughout the day…. Opening the doors of this house we are surprised that “Ah, this type of wave appears today.” We designed it this way to appreciate the appearance of waves
Photo © Koichi Torimura
Photo © Koichi Torimura
How does one see a wave?
What is the ocean? It is a wave. “When the final moment comes, I will face the rising sun and depart on a ship flashing towards death. At that moment the imaginary sun is not one. There are many suns. In the imaginary world he becomes a butterfly. The blue wings of a butterfly are the waves of a blue ocean. Looking up from the sea floor there is a sparkling ocean. These images are shaped into the form which is fit for a man who lives between the sea and a single room".
Sketch courtesy EASTERN design office
Sketch courtesy EASTERN design office
Sketch courtesy EASTERN design office
Are we insane, or is the client mad? Is this reality? Is it a dream?
Site area: 440.29 square meters
Total floor area: 74.52 square meters
Completed: 2010
Architects: EASTERN design office
Anna Nakamura + Taiyo Jinno
Structural Engineering: Hojo Structure Research Institute
Constructor: Daikokukensetsu
Mountain/Opening House
Takarazuka-city, Hyogo Prefecture, Japan
Photo © Koichi Torimura
The architecture is built on the slope of a hill with an elevation of 330 meters. The level difference of the site is 8 meters.
Taking advantage of the slope, one of the characteristics of this site, an architecture which suits the desires of two persons is built.
Photo © Koichi Torimura
The dream of this architecture is like a voyage setting out.
The plan is designed in L-shape. The edge protruding greatly from the slope is an opening that swallows the outside. Straight eaves run amidst the curvilinear forms of the topography. The eaves project in a powerful manner not to be beaten by the inherent force of the topography. They are thin, thick, short, long and carved.
Photo © Koichi Torimura
Photo © Koichi Torimura
To be protected by the house, yet at the same time have the feeling of flying away. Making two extremes into one. This is realized in the architecture in the corresponding forms of the upper and lower floors.
It is a cave and also a nautical form.
It is flying away, yet it is anchored.
It is drifting, yet it is homely.
It is sky, and it is Earth. It is far, yet it is near.
Photo © Koichi Torimura
This is a slope when architecture is erased. The architecture of the “house” is a “mountain.” The plan for this slope is to shape the mountain structurally, but that goal was to let people feel the uninterrupted flow of the curves that define the mountain. Let the people have a sense of closeness to the wave-like mountain. A small change to the curve will lead to a loss of balance, affecting the way openings should be designed, the mountain, and the entire architecture will also have to be change its form. However at this moment not even one person felt unnatural when standing on this undulating slope.
Sketch courtesy EASTERN design office
Sketch courtesy EASTERN design office
A person standing on a slope. A person crouching on a slope. A person flying off a slope. Only on a slope can people look back on the road they’ve climbed and, also can look at the way they will go from now on. It can be called a visional place that inspires people.
Photo24
Sketch courtesy EASTERN design office
Site area: 711.46 square meters
Total floor area: 361.84 square meters
Completed: 2009
Architects: EASTERN design office
Anna Nakamura + Taiyo Jinno
Engineering: Hojo Structure Research Institute
Contractor: Fukasaka Co., Ltd
Visit EASTERN design office for full descriptions of the projects.
EASTERN design office arcspace features
October 3, 2011
