White Cave / Takao Shiotsuka Atelier

Architects: Takao Shiotsuka Atelier
Location: Oita, Japan
Client: Private
Project year: 2006-2007
Site area: 419 sqm
Constructed area: 132.6 sqm
Contractor: Hokoku Co. Ltd
Photographs: Toshiyuki YANO (Nacasa & Partners Inc.,)

The house is built on a hill looking down at a town area. The site’s shape has an irregular form. There is a height difference of 2m in the site. The north side is adjacent to a neighbor with this height difference. In the west and the south sides trees grow thick right next to the neighbors. And to the East, you can see the town area.

Walking to the site through a path that goes side by side, causes the scenery to change as we walk, and feels very  attractive. We arranged the building parallel to the path and saved the height difference inside the volume placed across the site.

We wanted to give the building the same variety as the complex surroundings of the site and its irregular shape, causing disorder but not confusion, on a single operation. The angle of the walls is slightly changed to add more dynamism to the spaces as the user moves. Even the relation with the surroundings, that control and distances views and light, became complex.

The outside walls and the roof have a rough concrete finish, and the openings express the thickness of the concrete that form the volume. We wanted to continue with the characteristic silence of the place, given by the surrounding concrete wall, the ancient burial mounds park and the dense trees. We thought that the appearance of a hard static concrete volume responded to the surroundings of this location.