everybody is harking on about the translation and i agree with the sentiment that it would have been written in all liklihood by the architects themselves with their (very common) portable translator (http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/13/casio-electronic-dictionary-translator-talks-back-recognizes/) but these are far from perfect. you have to give kudos to them for their efforts. my japanese is good, however, certainly worse than their english is.

the space on the second level is interesting. does all spaces, accessible or not, have to be practical, logical or functional? isn’t a part of the delight of architecture to find such “non-spaces” throughout the experience of being in and around a building? the japanese do have a litany of small spaces, and general speaking they are specific to their uses. you will also see on a regular basis that the architects will in fact have professional photographs taken prior to handrail/balustrade installation as they feel it tends to detract from the minimalist (sadly almost clinical…) ethos that is rampant throughout japan. you only have to view ito, sejima and nishizawa’s work to see this. you also have to understand that differences between japanese and non-japanese clients. japanese clients tend to follow the architect without question which is in direct (typically, but not always) opposition to that of non-japanese clients.

all in all, interesting work with relevance to the site (orientation, materiality, spatial design etc), culture and use.

GOOD WORK!

but i still cannot believe that an architect could build a whole level on a house – with a great potential to be a place where intensive meditation or even big parties could be thrown – where people needs to crawl in order to move themselves around it just to materialize a metaphor about japanese social and moral codes. it gets downs to me as a sad and awful project flaw, an undeniable error because of a fetish that should have been discarded on the very beginning merely because this space does not fit people.

can it be some japanese cultural thing that I might be missing?

this is nothing functional at all! i really would like to understand why these architects decided to build a house with a ceiling where people cannot even stand straight on their feet because of a 1.40m-height ceiling on a whole level!

But in this house I’ll never live. Yes, for weekend entertainment it could be a good place to spent spare time, but to live here – never.