Low House / Plenty of openness

 This site is comprised of three lots located about ten minutes on foot from Kakuouzan Station in a quiet, secluded, high-class residential area. The client was a young couple that desired a warm, stylish residence without incurring high cost.

 The bedrooms, library and utilities are allocated on the first floor, and the second floor was as­signed as a comfortable open-plan living/dining/kitchen area. In order to liberate space in the kitchen, appliances and storage space are seamlessly embedded into the walls. A 5m tall tapered ceiling leading up to a skylight both fills the space with light whilst also intelligently eliminating the necessity for windows elsewhere in the room.

The north and south walls on both floors are fitted with bookshelves and storage spaces that double as structural supports, elegantly diminishing the feeling of restriction caused by an excess of books and other objects. Each bookshelf is fitted with a large feature window, that not only work in time with the facade design, but also create an impressive reflection of the outside scen­ery inside the space. A single window is also installed in the kitchen, creating a focal point in the room and in turn, a bright a gathering place for the family.

The floors, door fixtures and furniture are made from the same materials as the local surround­ings, which gives a sense of unity, warmth and space to the scheme. White fiber cement board was chosen as the material for the outer walls, to create a more visually dynamic exterior surface that also considers durability, ease of construction and maintenance. Utilities, storage and stair­cases are arranged in a way that maximizes free space, whilst also creating a logical plan that ad­dresses private / semi-private needs and maintains low costs. The plan is also flexible enough to adapt comfortably and organically with the growth and change of the residing family in the future.