Tato Architects / Yo Shimada

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House in Itami

Location / Osaka, Japan
Type / House
Family Structure / couple + 2 children

Design
Design
Tato Architects
Team / Yo Shimada　Shinpei Oda
Structure
S³ Associates
Team / Ichiro Hashimoto
Construction
Kohatsu
Scale
Three-storey
Main structure – Steel construction on concrete mat foundation
Site Area　59.16 ㎡
Building Area　34.95 ㎡ (59.08% of max 60% of coverage ratio permission)
Total Floor Area　96.88 ㎡ (163.76% of max 196% of floor area ratio permission)
First floor 32.92 ㎡
Second floor　33.83 ㎡
Third floor　30.15 ㎡

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Widening Interspace for Use
Many of the requests we receive for house design, is centred around the wish of a home for a nuclear family, often on a very small site. The usual architectural style, developed over the ages in Japan cannot be applied here. Instead, we might be in the formative period of a new style that is developing through a process of trial and error, to find the best way to utilise these small spaces depending on the environment.
This project is no exception. In this dense urban environment, where the outer walls of adjoining houses do not touch, the civil law require a minimum 500mm setback of outer walls between buildings, ensuring 1000mm of interspace between neighbouring houses. We felt we could use this space more effectively. So in this project, we provided an additional 400mm of setback from the boundary of the adjacent land to the North East. That resulted in 1400mm of interspace that could be used for passage, which was 900mm in width from the boundary of the adjacent plot. We placed the entrance in the middle of the sidewall facing this interspace, which minimized space required within the house for internal passage. The setback also allowed the eaves to be built as high as 9m avoiding the north side slant line. Non-structural walls were pushed outward into this setback from the interior, providing more space for closets etc. And in the same way, facilities such as the toilet were also given more room, whilst appearing from the interior to look like furniture with an ambiguous perception of space.
Architecture and Furniture
Whenever viewing an architect-designed house, it can occur as if the design of the furniture is telling something. It may be saying, “respect the original space and don’t bring any unnecessary things”, or perhaps it is personifying a strong desire to avoid filling the space with things that do not deserve to be there. Although it is an understandable desire to create a “finished” space, our projects still aim to create spaces where a variety of things can be brought in and used in everyday life more freely.
In this house, architectural elements such as stairs, a laundry space, closets, handrails and toilets are designed as if they are furniture. Beyond those pieces, there are only floors. As such, architecture and furniture merge and become relative to each other. In that way a sense of freedom is created in the rooms as if the furniture is randomly placed and used by chance.
Like Choreography Notes
Whenever viewing an architect-designed house, it can occur as if the design of the furniture is telling something. It may be saying, “respect the original space and don’t bring any unnecessary things”, or perhaps it is personifying a strong desire to avoid filling the space with things that do not deserve to be there. Although it is an understandable desire to create a “finished” space, our projects still aim to create spaces where a variety of things can be brought in and used in everyday life more freely.
In this house, architectural elements such as stairs, a laundry space, closets, handrails and toilets are designed as if they are furniture. Beyond those pieces, there are only floors. As such, architecture and furniture merge and become relative to each other. In that way a sense of freedom is created in the rooms as if the furniture is randomly placed and used by chance.
The way stairs are dealt with is very important in houses, especially in small ones. A typical method is to place stairs in the middle of a room, allocating functions on both sides. Although it maximizes usable area, that method is debatable, is the spatial experience as rich as it can be, when you live, seeing every inch of the house and the stairs all the time?
The ceiling height in the dining room is 3776mm, designed that way to make the space under the staircase landing a usable walkway. Because the landing is extremely thin, the height below is 1880mm and above 1850mm. Although these are tight dimensions, you can still walk comfortably between the layers, minding your head. It is favourable for a house to have enough scale for the physical movement of people. For that reason, the dining table was placed over the stair between the ground floor and the first floor leaving space for the residents to pass under it. People appear and disappear under the table as they go up and down the stair.
When you enter the house via the sliding door and walk up inside the “furniture” of the stairwell, you arrive on the first floor from under the dining table, where you are faced with a big wall receiving sunlight from the south window. You see the white wall softly lit from the north as you turn to step on a small stool to a raised living area. To reach the second floor, you step on the sofa structure, then on the next piece of furniture, designed like drawer and stair in one, and then eventually on a thin stair. At every step, light conditions change as the direction and the size of space changes. Stairs define the choreography of the spatial experience in this small, thin house.
Structure
As the site is located at the back of a narrow dead end alley, delivery of materials by vehicle was difficult. Therefore the materials used in the structure were light. For columns and beams, 100mm×100mm H steel sections were used, braced with round bars, and 75mm deck plates were used for the floor construction. This resulted in reduced amounts of steel materials, and the total construction cost was similar to that of a wooden house. The horizontal stiffness of floors was acquired through horizontal bracings of 6mm flat bars and 50mm squared tie beams beneath concave parts of the deck plates. Floors on different levels were fixed to the columns at both ends so that the continuity of stiffness between those was maintained.

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