Saitama, Tokyo, Japan
“When I first visited the site, I was suddenly reminded of an image, a photo of Richard Neutra’s Strathmore Apartments built in 1937,” says Waro Kishi of K Associates for the project House in Sashiogi.
“The immediate thought that came into my mind was that an open-plan, one-story house would be good for this environment,” he continues.
Japanese architect Waro Kishi and his team design a minimal residence in suburban Tokyo and create an interior landscape with the contrast of wood and steel.
“With this project, I dreamed of a Tokyo version of Case Study House for the 21st century, by designing an open-plan, one-story house which was possible to be built in the outskirts of Tokyo,” he says.
The Strathmore Apartments stand in the neighborhood of Westwood, and what came to his mind was not the architecture itself, but the nature captured in the background.
The landscape in the photo was desolate, and Kishi remembered being startled to learn that today’s lush landscape of the Westwood neighborhood used to look like a desert with sparsely growing shrubs.
No such landscape exists in the suburbs of Tokyo, but the site of this project unexpectedly reminded the architects that the Case Study Houses were achieved exactly because of the empty land in 1950s Los Angeles.
Considering changes in the surrounding environment and the urbanization that might occur in the future, K Associates were determined that a somewhat contradictory mix of a half-closed open-plan would work better in this mundane rural landscape on the outskirts of Tokyo.
A semi-transparent metal fence surrounds the house’s perimeter blocking the view from outside, while the house’s exterior walls are transparent glass.
The space in between that could not be quite described as a garden, functions as a buffer space against any future changes of the surrounding area.
Thus, they essentially designed an open-plan architecture with a double-skin.
The house is a wooden structure with rafters as the main structure, while other elements, including the exterior deck and the fence, are constructed with mass-produced materials to ensure high performance.
Project: House in Sashiogi
Architects: K.ASSOCIATES/Architects Co., Ltd.
Lead Architect: Waro Kishi
Client: Private
Photographers: Shigeo Ogawa
