New Kyoto Town House / Alphaville Architects
Courtesy of Alphaville Architects
Architect: Alphaville Architects – Kentaro Takeguchi + Asako Yamamoto
Location: Kyoto, Japan
Project Team: Tomohisa Koike(Associate Architect), Kazuo Takeguchi(Structural Engineer)
General contractor: Craftman Ship Kawana
Project Area: 78.68 sqm
Project Year: 2010
Photographs: Courtesy of Alphaville Architects
Courtesy of Alphaville Architects
This is a residential house located on a narrow site in the centre of Kyoto, the old capital of Japan. The area is lined with traditional wooden townhouses. While inheriting the advantages of townhouses, we intended to overcome their drawbacks and create a comfortable and enjoyable space. The most characteristic feature of this house is the polyhedral form of the partition walls. They are not made by intuition but are based on logical concepts and perform multiple functions.
Courtesy of Alphaville Architects
First, the partition walls, normally extended in the vertical and horizontal directions, have multidimensionality and loosely connect the rooms on the three floors. The space thus created is one continuous room with dynamic nuances: it is simultaneously spacious and heterogeneous.
Courtesy of Alphaville Architects
Second, the partition walls serve as reflectors of natural light. They softly reflect the natural light coming from both the north and south sides and bring it to the otherwise dark interior of the building. Finally, the partition walls blur the boundary between architecture and furniture, thus stimulating perception and behaviour. Melt into floors and ceilings, the plywood-finished walls offer enjoyable experiences of touching and passing. The house as a whole is a machine for living, like playground equipment.
Courtesy of Alphaville Architects
Because of the landscape regulations and the physical context of the neighbourhood, we inherited the traditional form and composition of townhouses. But at the same time, this house overcome the negative aspects of townhouses. The wooden structure of townhouses cannot afford to have large openings on the short sides of the building as well as on floors. Consequently, the interior is dark and communications of people are limited to the horizontal direction. In this project, it is the steel rigid frame and the polyhedral partition walls that enable to overcome the drawbacks of typical townhouses. Large openings on the walls and the floors, along with the partitions, allow natural light to diffuse multidirectionally, and encourage three dimensional communications and movements.
Courtesy of Alphaville Architects
Freed from the constraints of the old system, occupants can have various relations with each other and place, and a new lifestyle in the historical area of Kyoto emerges.
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4:31 PM Jan 27th
New Kyoto Town House / Alphaville Architects http://t.co/0pHdPiaD
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4:54 PM Jan 27th
Kyoto house, more origami than Liebeskind: http://t.co/Xg0Bu1qm
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2:14 AM Jan 28th
New Kyoto Town House / Alphaville Architects: Courtesy of Alphaville Architects
Architect: Alphaville Architects… http://t.co/x4CBTm4H
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4:32 AM Jan 29th
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8:55 AM Feb 5th
Love how this unassuming house in Kyoto captures the natural light :) http://t.co/rjo96abR #Architecture #interiordesign #Japan
6:45 PM Feb 5th
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3:43 PM Feb 11th
Procrastinando entre proyecto y proyecto, si a alguien le gustan las casas sencillas ya puede llamar a un carpintero http://t.co/7xFB8UFR