Alphaville designed this small house on a small site surrounded by heterogeneous buildings in Tokyo. Two triangular yards at north-east and south-west boundary point-symmetrically, making face all the windows onto these yards, and allowing the interior space to have two long vertical openings which can be sensed from everywhere.

The following information is from the architects:

//Macro-Manipulation

The rectangular site was cut off by an existing house. At first we conceived a linear volume that accentuates the length of the site. This long, linear volume adds a sense of velocity to the activities carried on. Out of the desire to introduce a sense of flow – we decided to bend the linear volume twice: As the results, a courtyard was created, and the central volume had a direction along with the north-south axis. At the bending points, the roof was slanted up to create cracks that provide the natural light into the linear volume.

//Micro-Manipulation

According to the bending walls, three interfaces were created; the entrance, a sub entrance, and the opening into the courtyard. Three openings that penetrate the bent walls as an interface forward the inside, fixed furniture, bookshelves, and the kitchen booth, all have a same height of 2,000mm and are finished in white. The floor’s finish goes from wood to concrete to suit necessary functions.

As the result of the overlapping of two manipulations mentioned above, the inner volume is filled with white folds of light and shadow, which are gentle, yet forcefully accentuating at the same time. As if it were a river which makes the flow of water through the rocks we could find appearing out of and disappearing into big and small flows in the space. A house is a place where its inhabitants spend a lot of there time: But can architecture truly be coexist with the activities of contemporary lives. How can architecture be simple, yet at the same time retain deepness and movement? When some one passed by, when you look out of the windows, or when you want to hide away from the others, in other words when architecture becomes the beautiful yet diversified background? There were some of the concerns we had while designing the house.

In terms of structure, we simply supported the volume by many but small the columns and beams 125-H 2m apart like birdcage. However these are reinfoeced by the slanted beam which performs like a 3-dimensional truss system, is rigid, and the load on the roof tranceformed the basin through the twisted balance.

The structure allows all posts and beams to be 125mm x 125mm in size, thus revealing the thickness of the roof through reasonably thin roofs. The macroscopic function on the scale of architecture, together with the microscopic function of the partitions and furniture, successfully merge the folds created by the structure, walls, and furniture into an overall uniformity.

Angles allows various perspectives 2m-high triangular direct special perception 2 triangular skylights Double twist Slanted roof multitude of lines casing shadows over the floor of ash and concrete. Like stream of water through small rocks Longitudinal house snakes over the plot at two 45 angles.

For more pictures visit: www.a-ville.net.