House in Yokosuka

“Positive” utilization of imitative elements – When an "imitative" material is used instead of its original one, we have a tendency to make some sort of excuse for using it by saying, "well, there is no choice other than using the imitation". What is the reason to make us feel guilty to choose imitation? Instead, we shall value the nature and quality of imitation, by looking at the corporate effort and the technology of manufactures to produce such product with overwhelmingly impressive imitative quality. This project was the attempt to open up a new possibility to the design field by endorsing the use of imitation more willingly and intentionaly.

The project site is located alongside of the coastal road No.134 in Kamakura city. Looking for the ocean views, this road is lined with many cottages in Northern European, Western European, or Japanese styles, forming a scenery literary made up with wide variety of “imitative” houses in various styles.

In this project, such imitative scenery is positively endorsed, starting from artificial cliff-like imitative scenery as a part of the building volume. This closed volume contains supportive, "back-of-the-house" elements for daily living such as water section of the house. The "front-end" elements of the house, such as living, dining and kitchen spaces, are housed in a single-story building allocated on top of the cliff shaped volume. From there, spectacular view of the ocean can be overlooked under the site. This design is the metaphorical gesture to represent the concept to create a gratifying living environment on top of an imitative component.

Even for the selection of materials, imitative ones are employed positively; "Jolypate" for the "cliff" element; resin-based material for wood deck; and boron fiber for tatami mat. These artificial materials have superior property in terms of maintenance, providing user-friendliness and accessibility for daily life.

It is obvious and inevitable that today's living in modern day environment is established and realized on top of those “imitative” products. Those products have achived certain degree of virtues as the crystallization of modern technologies with the notion of sustainability. It is ture to open up various new possibilities to design field by positively accepting and utilizing the idea of "imitation".