I2-house [court house] locates in crowding resident area in Nagasaki city of Nagasaki prefecture, its floorage is 76.42 m², and two generation lives in it.

To the east and south of the house, there are streets. In the eastern side, a two-floor house is opposite to it, and in the southern side, a two-floor shop stands in opposite side of the road. The two other sides of the house are adjacent to existed resident houses. Roughly speaking, the environment of construction planning is not promising.

In this environment, the protection of privacy, bringing nature light and wind inside and using the existing floor area optimally become the theme and concept of the designing. To realize these, four strategies is implemented.

The first one is omitting the fence, which means more space can be used. Meanwhile, for the optimal space using, a 3-floors wooden house is brought into plan.

Secondly, build a vertical connected light court from the second floor to the ground floor. This realize the assumption of bring nature light and wind inside, and privacy and safety also are ensured.

Thirdly, use light-through and air-through material in the central balcony of second floor to make sure the light and air can reach the ground floor.

Fourthly, arrange the rooms around light court. The wall near the light court side is brought into the vertical-slit-window designing in order to create better ventilated rooms.

These designing fulfill those theme and concept we brought up.

To create a fashion and simple visual sense from outside, the ground floor and the first floor are painted black and the second floor is white. Besides, the wall of the light court in the ground floor is used white color, which combines with the light coming out through the slit, gives out a feeling of warm and peace to people around.

shooting: Blitz STUDIO Toshihisa Ishii