House In Kodaira / Suppose Design Office

Architects: Suppose Design Office
Location: Kodaira city, Tokyo , Japan
Project area: 50,87 sqm
Project year: 2008 – 2010
Photographs: Toshiyuki Yano

This is a residential project that has a unique garden at the front of the house. The building, located in a residential area in Kodaira-shi, Tokyo, was designed for 4 family members. The site is located in a place where it is directly connected to the public street. Because of the conditions, our theme was to create a house to open to the outside yet it could keep a private space.

There is a front yard at the dwelling. We were considering the garden to connect the outside and inside but also to separate them for keeping the personal environment. To create the courtyard as a semi private zone, a tent structure was used for a partition to separate the two spaces. The tent is covering the garden as if it was a roof, a wall and also a fence. The structure creates the outside environment as a part of interior of the house. Moreover, the sliding doors at the living room can be totally open to the front garden to engage the comfortable green space to the private rooms.

We hope the residence could create an environment for more communities with neighbors that we used to have before, and reminds people the new relationship between a city and buildings, buildings and people.