Tato Architects / Yo Shimada

House in Matsunoki

Location / Suginami, Tokyo, Japan
Programme / Private residence
Household / A couple and one child

Design

Tato Architects / Yo Shimada
Design team / Yo Shimada, Takeo Watanabe, Yuka Himeno

Structural engineering

S³ Associates
Team / Ichiro Hashimoto

Contractor

Hirohashi Komuten

Structure

Main structure / Steel frame
Foundation / Mat slab

Scale

Floors / One below ground, two above
Site area 119.18 ㎡
Building footprint 51.38 ㎡ (building coverage ratio 43.12%, permitted 50%)
Total floor area 118.72 ㎡ (floor area ratio 99.62%, permitted 100%)
Basement floor　50.88 ㎡
First floor　38.55 ㎡
Second floor　29.69 ㎡

In Japan’s climate of heavy rain and harsh sunlight, we have come to want to build a deeply folded architecture in which deep eaves extend wherever conditions allow, outdoor space envelops the interior, and domestic life gradually seeps into its surroundings.

The site lies in an old residential district typical of Tokyo, where a web of narrow lanes and a fine grain of small houses create a comfortable density. That density has been shaped over time by the accumulation of various building regulations, and it seemed likely to survive future cycles of rebuilding. Bounded by narrow streets on three sides, the site offers open views in many directions, yet is exposed to view in return; the clients wanted a degree of enclosed comfort.

The street slopes down toward the west. By placing the entrance at the lowest, western corner, the floor of the lowest level sits 900 mm below the average ground level, legally classifying it as a basement. With the eaves kept below seven metres, the house is exempt from Japan’s sun-shadow regulations, permitting one storey below ground and two above. Working with regulations such as the required setbacks of the external walls, and with the exemptions granted for eaves and balconies, we stacked volumes divided into half-storey heights, shifting each as it rises, to match the scale of the small timber houses around it.

The overhangs produced by the shifts become eaves, storage and small outdoor spaces outside the windows, in an attempt to bind the adjacent surroundings, the interior and the semi-outdoor spaces into single environments. The basement, with a relatively generous ceiling height of 2,600 mm, opens through glass on all sides and becomes continuous with a garden spreading 900 mm above its floor. The middle floor, its ceiling held low, faces the street — passing roughly 2,100 mm below its floor — across a veranda on the south. The top floor opens, through a roof terrace on the north, to the sky and the roofscape of the neighbourhood. Each level forms a single environment with outdoor space of a different orientation and character, and a stairwell rising to a skylight threads the levels together.

A basement 900 mm below the ground, a middle floor 2,100 mm above it, and a top floor level with the surrounding roofs: through three layers tied to the town at different heights, the activities of the home seep outward and the air of the city filters in. We hope this house demonstrates the comfort of living in a dense residential neighbourhood.