This project reconstructs a new home on an inherited family property due to concerns about changing living conditions and the aging condition of the house. It is located in a neighbourhood historically shaped by the twisted yarn industry, where small factories coexist with residential areas. A bus street runs along a monthly parking lot and a narrow passage (Uma ire michi) on the northeast. A local factory stands on the south side, and a traditional Japanese house and garden are located on the west. This proposal engages this mixed urban context while anticipating a quieter post retirement life.
The client, who has decided to reconstruct, will remain single for life and is approaching retirement in a little over a decade. He prefers only minimal spaces for single living and a study room for remote work, suitable for future living. There is a great view of the mountains, so we proposed opening the greenery of the mountains visible behind the site to the neighbourhood and designed a low eave height. However, it was necessary to maximize the building coverage ratio under the Building Standards Law in Japan in order to design a single storey house on this site.
In order to secure the maximum coverage ratio, we decided to place the house close to the north street, and the outline of the house runs along the site boundary. However, to create new interventions, such as forming a local community and opening sightlines for pedestrians, we created a narrow passing alley (Tooriniwa) between the neighbourhood to the west and the local factory to the south as a buffer space, allowing the architecture to remain autonomous. As a result, we found that a unique geometry emerged, composed of two edges. A street running north and south converges toward a point to the east, while the east side street and west side residential edge converge toward a point to the north. Based on this, we intersect two newly generated grids within the site and equally divide the interior elements accordingly. We call this system a perspective grid.
Primary structural beams (300 by 105 mm) and columns (105 by 105 mm) are arranged on a grid oriented toward a point to the east, and they support the roof. In contrast, thin timber columns (60 by 105 mm), beams (60 by 105 mm), and load bearing walls (30 by 105 mm) are inserted between the primary beams, and they function only for seismic resistance. The reason for creating a gap is that placing thin columns on grid intersections, as in conventional construction, would result in different joint angles at each connection, complicating timber joints and increasing costs. Also, the width of the load bearing walls is standardized at 1365 mm, which is the same as the width of the windows. Because the windows on the exterior walls use a unified lintel detail to make the structural system visible.
Although each interior wall inclines only slightly, we can consciously perceive the overall composition more than in a square grid, and it provides spatial continuity that gives a sense of extension beyond its scale. Additionally, the ceiling height is intentionally low so that both the top and bottom lines, such as baseboards and ceiling trims, come into view together, amplifying this effect.
The layout of the plan moves from north to south, becoming more intimate. The main sequence follows this axis, where the wall thickness is thin. However, along the opposite axis, the thick structural beams are exposed to emphasize the visibility of the perspective grid. The two intersecting perspective grids are critical to a plan that deliberately takes advantage of a non-rectangular site shape.
