Tato Architects / Yo Shimada

House in Suwayama

Location

Kobe, Hyogo, Japan

Principal use

Residence + atelier

Family

A couple

Design

Tato Architects / Yo Shimada — team: Yo Shimada, Chihiro Ishii (former staff)

Structural engineer

tmsd / Takashi Manda Structural Design — team: Takashi Manda, Taijiro Kato

Builder

Iwatsuru Komuten

Structure

Steel frame

Foundation

Mat foundation

Storeys

3 storeys above ground

Eaves height

9,000 mm (maximum height: 9,195 mm)

Site area

93.53 m²

Building area

39.69 m² (building coverage ratio: 42.44%, 60% allowed)

Total floor area

114.49 m² (floor area ratio: 122.41%, 160% allowed)
1F: 39.69 m²　2F: 39.69 m²　3F: 35.11 m²

Making the Surrounding Environment a Compositional Element of Space

A house and atelier for a couple who design and craft leather goods. The site sits at the northern edge of central Kobe, on the boundary between city and mountain, where the sea presses in from the south, the mountains from the north, and the city spreads out in condensed form between them. Toward the road, the site commands a view over the city to the sea; on the mountain side, a retaining wall and dense greenery loomed close. Located at the far end of a narrow lane, the site raised concerns about the difficulty of construction and the dampness descending from the mountain, yet the sheer diversity of its surroundings was compelling. We therefore set out to make the fullest possible use of the appeal of these surroundings as compositional elements of the space.

Keeping a distance from the road side, where the ground was poor, we searched for a volume that would satisfy the setback regulations on the mountain side to the north. Using the sky-exposure-ratio provision, we placed a volume with a square plan of 6.3 m × 6.3 m and a height of 9 m at roughly the center of the site. Inserting floors while weighing their relationship to the surroundings—the height of the retaining wall, the views—produced spaces of differing volumetric character, with ceiling heights of approximately 3.26 m, 2.70 m, and 2.16 m. A diagonal wall passing through the center of the plan rotates 90 degrees on each floor. Repeating this simple operation divides each level into trapezoidal plans, and either the long side or the short side of each was made an opening. The same volume thus splits into two kinds of space: one that connects, megaphone-like, to different environments through openings at both ends, and one that merges with the outside through a large opening along its long side. Through these spaces—each taking on a distinct quality from the surrounding environment it adjoins—the staircase runs, breaking through the diagonal walls, like a thread pulled through a needle binding a cloth together as it passes from face to face. The stair links spaces of differing character on each level, and the openings thus cut through walls and floors connect the plan, and the floors above and below, in unexpected directions.

Something we noticed only after completion is that the character of each space—determined by its openings, its ceiling height, and its relation to the environment—also changes markedly with the position of the body. The view of the city seen from the living room vanishes when one sits on the floor, leaving only sky. From the spare room on the third floor one can see far out to the sea, yet sitting with one’s back to the roadside wall, only the neighbors’ roofs and the closely looming mountain remain, so that the perceived scale of the space seems to oscillate.

In this house, we attempted to draw out the diversity of the surroundings by restricting our operations to the direction of the openings, the ceiling heights, the diagonal walls, and the staircase that pierces and binds them. Spaces of identical plan, generated by a geometric, autonomous composition, take on heteronomy through the orientation of their windows and the external environments they connect to, transforming into spaces of great variety.