The client’s family has been living in the beautiful site surrounded by nature for generations for over 300 years. The client couple lived in the “main house” built two generations ago and an “annex” built by them, going back and forth between those two separate buildings. They wanted to have a new style of living so that they could have a space to invite their daughter’s family and grandchildren. I planned this extension and restoration to make it feasible for its rich heritage to pass on to the next generation whileleaving their favorite “annex”.
In order to make the existing building, the garden, the nature in the neighborhood andthe newly created extension building section as one piece, not a disjointed structure, the structure was fixed and added based on each buildings conditionwith using the common material between the existing section and the extension section.The new plan consists of three gardens with the different characteristics for the existing part and two large roofs. Under the one roof there is the “living room/kitchen building” used also as dining room, and the“Nandemo Terrae” means, multi-purpose terrace, is in the open-air space under another roof.
The two roofs are made as a structure of a wooden sandwich panel to make it as large, reasonably and economically as possible. The shape of the roof was designed as a response to the surrounding nature, light and wind so the elevation is very pliable, its angle and height are carefully determined depends on the activities taken under the roof. For example, by setting down the eaves on the neighborhood side of the “Nandemo Terrace” to 1,900mm, it connects the garden while shielding the gaze from neighborhood.
At the same time, at the center the eave rises the elevation to 4,600mm so it could capture the natural light and creates a place for people to gather.On the front part of the existing annex building, we designed a new sunroom by aluminum so it could extend the living space to the outside.We brought the same materials in walls and fittings in the extension part. Like above, we thought about how we could keep and pass on the memory and the affection in the beloved buildings to the new space and at the same time, we fixed the house to take back the quality of living not dragged too much to the existing buildings. In the end, we found this feeling that you cannot tell the boundary of the existing and new extension parts.
Things that existed before, newly brought in, everything is placed in parallel, and rich nature spreads behind them. The toughness of the living of the client, which seems like it would overcome the inconvenience life so far, mixed with the generous environment then moderate looseness appeared. Despite all the different structures, it became “one house” like they are holding hands with each other.
