Katsuhiko Endo Architect and Associates

The Villa is located in the sloping lot overlooking Old Karuizawa facing east. It’s designed with a very primary cubic volume of 9.9 meter x 9.9 meter. There are the “open interior” consists with living room and dining room and the “closed interior” with other spaces. The “open interior” is where curved out from the cube. It’s the “open space” inside of the “closed space” which is called an architecture. “Closed interior” is composed of private rooms, bathroom and library where you cannot see from the living room nor dining room. There are two stairs to access there and you need to enter inside the walls surrounding the living room and dining room to reach to the “closed interior” area. In other words, our intention was intentionally to cross the “open space” and “closed space.” We think that architectural space is not only limited to “inside” and “outside.” Given the rise of the almost-invisible thin walls or glass walls, architecture now refers to a space quite fragile like a soap bubble’s surface. Are “transparent walls” or “blurry transparency” the only architectural possibilities? In architecture, are there still other ways to divide spaces with something like highest mountains or rivers too deep? I’m hoping to design spaces somewhat violent that a mass of architecture itself defines the boundaries. When I think of this idea, Eduardo Chillida’s sculptures always come to my mind that a chisel can cut out a single block of marble to make it transforms into a “space.”