Ashida Architect & Associates

Dancing in the City

Dwellings reject the city" is how urban housing can be described in the modern age. Living in the city" consists of rejecting the external environment of the city in terms of privacy, crime prevention, air conditioning, high airtightness, high insulation, and so on. In the past, the lively voices of a happy family overflowed from the porch open to the city or from the living room with its windows open. Each house played its own role in the city.

This residence was planned in one of the busiest commercial areas in Tokyo. The building area was approximately 10 tsubo. It is what is called a "narrow house. We sought to create an open and spacious residence that would completely negate the word "small".

The staircase from the second floor to the third floor was placed on the front street side, and its arc-shaped exterior wall was covered with curved glass. The staircase thus casts light into the dining room on the second floor, and when one ascends from the second floor to the third floor, the experience is like climbing to heaven.
The basement is a two-story atrium with a floating slab on the first floor, so that the basement and ground floors are not disconnected, but rather the staircase acts as a link between the upper and lower floors.

The large openings that create a sense of openness and the volume of the curved climbing staircase, which takes advantage of the site's location at the end of the street, create a residence that seems to dance in the midst of a glamorous, festive city.

Site area: 50.99 m2
Building area: 35.59 m2
Total floor area: 120.74 m2
Scale/Structure: RC + S, 1 basement floor, 3 floors above ground