Sapporo & Asahikawa. Japan

2012

2 houses studio task was to design in parallel two family houses in Hokkaido, Japan. A concept was needed to face both projects and stablish some specific rules. By following those rules during the designing process would give clarity to the final project.

The concept should be open to specific states and 

restrictions from both sites. The goal was to prove that the concept could work for Sapporo and Asahikawa giving them an added value in the way of living the houses.

Before choosing the abstract concept, an analysis phase explored and studied several concepts about the japanese way of thinking the space and specific climate conditions as well.

Space in domestic architecture

The Japanese spatio-temporal concept of “ma” suggests a gap, opening delay or silence. ”ma” can be undestood as a demarcated in-betweennes in space or time. ”oku” is the innermost area. The core of this high density space is organized into multiple layers. Therefore, in the margins of different physical and geographic realities new places of hybridity and miscellaneous are generated, this thresholds are inherent features of the contemporary culture .

Construction of the concept

Thick walls in which the inhabitants can substract how and whatever they want to create: cupboards, seats, shelves or rooms.

To inhabit a place from the boundary, almost outside from it, in a space with enough dimensions to be in. We usually relate space to the movement, the dynamic, “Le promenade architecturale”, but most of the things we do at home, we do them when we are not moving.

Porosity as container of spaces: The porosity, seen as thick walls, concurs the possibility of obtaining significant places by taking the thickness of the wall as a sort of “container” of marginal spaces. A large number of secondary spaces are obtained within the thick perimeter walls, open or hidden, on the inside or the outside