House in Futamatagawa - Kiyonobu Nakagame Architect and Associates

The house is located in Yokohama's old residential district, the point of departure of the project was, designing a house in an empty space of a great residence. The one that served as home to the family for years on end, but as it is natural; The children to grow and to develop needed their own space.

While parents continue to live at the bigger house, that you count on a great Japanese garden, with the characteristics that you grant him his millenarian tradition. On the premises, it was had to calculate and to consider all existent the conditions of the parent company, in order to visualize the new house; Without taking away his prominence neither being out of tune in the architectonic aspect.

Of a structure of reinforced concrete, all walls have a finishing of cement caravista so much in the inside and exterior. A noble and unalterable material, that he confers an architectonic only, appreciable- beauty personality to the walls of the buildings and residences, is very resistant to the passage of time and of very low maintenance, which in turn has properties of thermic and acoustic isolation.

Distributed in three levels, an obvious disposition is noticed to the clearances combining them with a linear furniture and minimalista, like in being in TV or the study. In the last level there is a great terrace delimited with a deck of crystal, what increases the sensation of space amplitude. This terrace floats on the front of the house, standing out of the same body of her, remaining apparently plenty of close to the main house.

Photographs: Katsuhisa Kida
Architect: Kiyonobu Nakagame Architect and Associates
Structural Engineer: Mitsuhiro Kanada
Contractor: Meiji Homes Co

House N - Sou Fujimoto

A home for two plus a dog. The house itself is comprised of three shells of progressive size nested inside one another. The outermost shell covers the entire premises, creating a covered, semi-indoor garden. Second shell encloses a limited space inside the covered outdoor space. Third shell creates a smaller interior space. Residents build their life inside this gradation of domain.

I have always had doubts about streets and houses being separated by a single wall, and wondered that a gradation of rich domain accompanied by various senses of distance between streets and houses might be a possibility, such as: a place inside the house that is fairly near the street; a place that is a bit far from the street, and a place far off the street, in secure privacy.

That is why life in this house resembles to living among the clouds. A distinct boundary is nowhere to be found, except for a gradual change in the domain. One might say that an ideal architecture is an outdoor space that feels like the indoors and an indoor space that feels like the outdoors. In a nested structure, the inside is invariably the outside, and vice versa. My intention was to make an architecture that is not about space nor about form, but simply about expressing the riches of what are `between` houses and streets.

Three nested shells eventually mean infinite nesting because the whole world is made up of infinite nesting. And here are only three of them that are given barely visible shape. I imagined that the city and the house are no different from one another in the essence, but are just different approaches to a continuum of a single subject, or different expressions of the same thing- an undulation of a primordial space where humans dwell. This is a presentation of an ultimate house in which everything from the origins of the world to a specific house is conceived together under a single method.

Architects: Sou Fujimoto Architects

Location: Oita, Japan

Project Team: Yumiko Nogiri

Structural Consultant: Jun Sato Structural Engineers

Design Year: 2006-2007

Construction Year: 2007-2008

Site Area: 236,57 sqm

Constructed Area: 150,57 sqm

Photographer: Iwan Baan

Vanguard Way - Morrison Seifert Murphy

This was the first house completed in new Dallas neighborhood devoted entirely to Modernism. As our clients were the first they were able to select a premier albeit irregularly-shaped site that overlooks a public park and waterway.

We accommodated the program in a compact, two-story structure that essentially extends to the buildable limits of the property but reserves some space for private outdoor uses. The garage, accessed via an open motor court, can double as a photographic studio.

Guests enter from the street under a covered porch that leads to a double- height entry that is illuminated from above. The space compresses just before entering the next double-height volume of the living room. This space is adjoined by the dining space and kitchen. The master bath, dining space and living space are arranged enfilade about a centerline that leads through a double-height window wall to a sculpture garden and the park beyond. The guest suite above dining space is organized about this same axis and has its own view to the park and waterway.

The master suite adjoins a walled terrace containing a spa and fireplace. With the sliding panels open these spaces can be used as one. The powder bath is an exquisite space best explained by the images contained herein. Suffice to say that due to its unique plan and dramatic presence the owners have made it a part of the entry experience.
The entire house is rendered in hard-troweled, white stucco with sealed concrete floors throughout the ground level.

Architects: Morrison Seifert Murphy

Location: Dallas, Texas, USA

Architect in Charge: Lionel Morrison, FAIA

Project year: 2007

Constructed Area: 250 sqm

Engineering: David Bowick, Blackwell Engineering

Construction: Kropf Industries, Penfold Construction

Photographs: Morrison Seifert Murphy