Hayato Komatsu Architects

This is a reconstruction of a house in Iyo City, Ehime Prefecture.

The site is in a residential area that has been platted, and most of the plan is for the building to be pulled to the north with a garden on the south side. The client wanted to secure a certain degree of privacy from the surrounding environment, and to create an airy space while securing lighting, since the site is surrounded by houses except for the road on the east side.

Since the placement of a single garden on the south side of the site would greatly bias ventilation and lighting depending on the rooms, we began by planning the placement of two gardens on the site. By dividing the building into a south wing and a north wing, which are sandwiched between these two gardens extending from east to west and three gardens on the neighboring land to the north, we created an airy space on the site and led the flow of wind. The floor level of the north wing was raised by half a floor to create a skip floor with the south wing, allowing as much light as possible to enter the first floor of the north wing, and by sloping the ground to match the floor skip with the garden, a clear division of use was created between a courtyard for viewing and a courtyard used as an extension of the living room. The LDK has a distinctive design. In the LDK, the distinctive wall pillars and eaves function as a horizontal force-bearing structure, creating large openings in the north and south sides of the room despite its wooden construction. In contrast to the rooms, the stairwells and corridors connecting the north and south wings have minimal wall openings, and the top lights create a space where one can feel the transition of the sky.

The theme of the project was how to obtain lighting and ventilation by dispersing the rooms in a dense residential area, but the result is a space where one can feel the changing of the seasons.