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    Japan Houses: Ideas for the 21st Century
    Japan Houses: Ideas for the 21st Century
    Japan Houses: Ideas for the 21st Century
    Ebook333 pages1 hour

    Japan Houses: Ideas for the 21st Century

    By Marcia Iwatate, Geeta Mehta and Takeshi Nakasa

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    About this ebook

    This Japanese architecture and design book is a wonderful source of new styles and ideas for those looking to add a distinctively Zen flair to their home.

    Limited spaces, unlimited technology, a tradition of innovation, and sheer Japanese panache have combined to inspire the 26 stunning homes featured in Japan Houses. Conceived by 24 of Japan's leading architects and designers, each of the houses forecasts and defines a new trend in residential architecture, reinventing the meaning and use of space, material, and function.

    Traditional lifestyles are challenged, domestic functions such as cooking and entertaining are moved out of the house into the public domain, while laptops bring work back in. Zen minimalist is juxtaposed with comfortable opulence. Time-honored workmanship is coupled with exciting new materials, resulting in a recognizable style that belongs to Japan, reflecting its culture and craftsmanship, while at the same time being avant-garde and international. The spirit of each of these astonishing houses is captured in beautiful photographs, plans and commentary.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTuttle Publishing
    Release dateMay 1, 2012
    ISBN9781462905942
    Japan Houses: Ideas for the 21st Century

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      Book preview

      Japan Houses - Marcia Iwatate

      Contents

      The block-like, windowless façade of the Habikigaoka Residence (page 136), which has been designed around an inner garden, screens out neighboring views and noise and contributes to the feeling of serenity within.

      New Japan House in the 21st Century

      by Geeta K. Mehta

      The Japanese house provides a valuable paradigm in the search for new directions in residential architecture in the 21st century. Japan is a wealthy nation of innovative people and highly developed architectural traditions. The outstanding features of Japanese design at its best continue to be the same as they have been throughout history; contemporary materials now give the design a new vigor, rendered with a characteristic Japanese panache. A sense of flowing space, integration of the interior with the exterior, materiality that expresses the essence of each material, and a strong tradition of exquisite craftsmanship—these timeless principles come alive again in the new Japanese house.

      In some ways, the contemporary architects whose work is featured in this book work in an environment relatively free of the technical and economic constraints present almost everywhere else. Considerations such as a structure’s longevity and its size and comfort—the main design criteria in most other countries—are not high priorities in Japan. The constraints on Japanese design arise primarily from the scarcity of land and the small sized residential lots typical of this heavily populated island nation. The homes in this book have managed to overcome the challenge presented by limited space, either because they are located outside crowded cities, or because of the design strategies that eliminate the visual clutter of the surroundings to create havens that are serene and inspiring.

      Many of these homes are vacation homes built in settings of great natural beauty. They are noteworthy for the innovative ways in which they open to nature, building on traditional elements and techniques. In addition to windows, they feature entire walls that slide away to open the room to the outdoors. Inside, the rooms themselves often open one into another, blurring the demarcation between spaces, both interior and exterior, and inviting the landscape and seasons to flow in. This merger is in part accomplished through the use of extending the floor and ceiling materials from the interior to the exterior of the house. Doorframes and sliding rails are embedded into the floor and ceilings to guide the eye effortlessly from the interior to the exterior. This is how the Zig House & Zag House (page 32) and I House (page 142) invite their lush surroundings in. On the other hand, the tiny Engawa House (page 52) uses these same techniques to successfully expand its sense of space.

      A flowing sense of space, even when the area is small, is also enhanced by the creation of uninterrupted surfaces in soft natural colors that expand the line of sight, instead of drawing the eye inwards, towards objects such as windows, artwork, fussy moldings or hardware. Traditional Japanese craftsmen excelled at simplifying details, and exaggerating a few selected joints or details for aesthetic effect. These same principles are now being applied to new materials such as textured or tinted concrete, large tempered glass surfaces, fiberglass and fiber-reinforced plastics. Materiality is a forte of Japanese architecture. The time-honored high standard of workmanship that is still available today, albeit at a price, has been coupled with exciting new materials, resulting in a recognizable style that is Contemporary Japanese. Most homes in this book were designed by relatively young architects willing to experiment with materials and detailing that, though new, underscore traditional concepts. The poured concrete floors of the Karuizawa Gallery Villa (page 148), the dark stained concrete exterior of the Roundscape House (page 112) are good examples of this.

      Things usually taken for granted in a private home, such as the functionality of the kitchen and bathroom, are challenged and reinvented in several houses in this book, with privacy often given a lower priority, as in the Karuizawa Gallery Villa (page 148). Unlike in the West, privacy and comfort in Japan are negotiable in the quest for an aesthetic living environment. This may in part be because over time the Japanese have developed social mores that allow individuals relative privacy even in public spaces. The same considerations allow for personal privacy even when the living room, bedrooms, and other areas in a Japanese home flow into each other, as in the Engawa House (page 52) and Roundscape House (page 112). Space constraints are further reflected in the small or open kitchens common in contemporary Japanese homes. Many houses, including some of the luxurious ones in this book, only have one bathroom to serve the whole family. Indeed, having any bath in a house is a luxury that became common only in recent decades. Long after World War II, public baths (sento) have continued to fulfil this need in certain areas.

      Situated on a spectacular seashore away from the bustle of big cities, I House (page 142), with its concrete slabs folded like a giant origami form, is a stage for the act of living, rather than a mere collection of functional rooms.

      In Japan, where even the largest and most richly detailed building is worth only a fraction of the land on which it stands, structures are torn down and re-erected with relative abandon. An average building lasts only 20–30 years, serving only one-third of its potential useful life. Historically, such frequent rebuilding was necessary to replace wood that had rotted in the country’s high humidity, or had burned in frequent fires. The current frenzy for re-construction is, however, driven by Japanese construction companies that often deliberately build obsolescence into their structures and count on repeat business from loyal clients. The recent throw-away architectural culture is a regrettable development in a country where traditional homes were 100% natural, sustainable, and recyclable. Evolving earthquake laws are often used to justify the tatekae, or the rebuilding process now. The construction industry accounts for a whopping 12-14 percent of Japan’s GNP, compared with an average of 6 percent in other developed countries.

      Japanese homes are small, partly due to successive subdivisions of land in residential areas as a result of high inheritance taxes. Inheritors usually have to sell part of their land to pay so-called death duties, as Japan’s socialistic tax regime envisages the liquidation of all large land assets in about three generations. The result in most Japanese cities is a mosaic of small, densely packed lots. Cramming all the necessary spaces of a home into a small lot, while at the same time evoking nature and creating a feeling of spaciousness, is a huge challenge, one which is well met in several houses in this book, including the Aobadai House (page 94), the M House (page 118) and Kunitachi House (page 130). Less can be more in the hands of Japanese architects. While few people can afford a large house, many middle-income people do invest in vacation homes away from the cities to create their dream living environments.

      In most homes today, traditional Japanese elements and tatami rooms are conspicuous by their absence. Traditional homes in Japan, as elsewhere, are losing popularity as people choose dwellings that are more comfortable, easier to maintain, and support modern conveniences like central heating and air conditioning. In Fukuoka, Arata Isozaki invited several well-known international architects in 1991 to design the best in public housing in a project called Nexus. While some architects incorporated traditional Japanese elements into their designs, most did not. The houses most in demand were those without tatami mat rooms and other Japanese elements. Yet the homes in this book use traditional Japanese elements in some form in a thoroughly modern way with great success. Examples of this are the shoji paper screens in IS House (page 18) and the façade and tatami room of the Koyama residence (Page 100).

      Many houses featured in this book have special spaces reminiscent of the timelessness found in traditional Japanese homes. The hearth in Nojiriko Villa (page 46) and the pitched ceilings in M House (page 118) achieve this almost effortlessly. What is absent in a Japanese home is just as important as what is there. Elimination of the inessential has always been an intrinsic part of Japanese architecture. This sensibility still exists in many of the homes presented in this book, alongside the fashionable kitchen systems imported from Italy.

      With its white colors, clean lines, and simple surfaces, the open-plan kitchen in the Abstract House (page 26), like the rest of the interior, is a study in elimination of the inessential.

      The allegiance to the masters of classical modern design is strong as seen in the Abstract House (page 26) and in

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