The house sits on a ridge, enjoying different views from four windows under the flipped-up roof.
Photo © TOREAL / Koji Fujii 2020
Village view over the kitchen from the elevated area on the upper floor. Encapsulated inside the pyramid roof on a hill in Kamakura, the upper floor has four openings, each directed toward a unique view. The shelf in the center core loosely separates the four spaces. The ceiling height varies between 700 and 4,040 millimeters.
Photo © TOREAL / Koji Fujii 2020
Photo © TOREAL / Koji Fujii 2020
Koagari on the upper floor. Elevated sitting space used for work.
Photo © TOREAL / Koji Fujii 2020
The cupboard, also working as railings, is an important path for the cats.
Photo © TOREAL / Koji Fujii 2020
Looking from Koagari to the dining.
Photo © TOREAL / Koji Fujii 2020
Photo © TOREAL / Koji Fujii 2020
Looking up from the library to the upper level. The shelves on the upper floor has a gap against the outer wall to allow the cats to move up- and downstairs.
Photo © TOREAL / Koji Fujii 2020
Looking down from the dining to the ground floor atelier. The gap on the left between the shelf and the wall is to allow the cats to go through.
Photo © TOREAL / Koji Fujii 2020
The atelier on the ground floor. We created one and a half story spaces in the corners to connect the two levels, where otherwise the ceiling would be too low for people to stand.
Photo © TOREAL / Koji Fujii 2020
From the ground floor atelier to the enterance The small arch opening is an entrance for the cats to the lavatory .
Photo © TOREAL / Koji Fujii 2020
Photo © TOREAL / Koji Fujii 2020
Photo © TOREAL / Koji Fujii 2020
Photo © TOREAL / Koji Fujii 2020
Photo © TOREAL / Koji Fujii 2020
Hat on the Ridge
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Locatie
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Kanagawa, Japan
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Jaar
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2019
The house sits on a ridge of a hill in Kamakura, one of Japan’s ancient capitals . The site is covered in a typical soil of the area—soft sediments over the surface of bedrock. The site was above the road level by just the thickness of the soil, which we chose to remove by the shape of the building footprint to put the foundation directly on the bedrock. The approach from the road is dug into this soil as well, gently sloping down towards the ground level of the house. By placing a structurally stable pyramid roof over the simple square-shaped plan of the house, we created a pillarless space under the single roof.
The space was then vertically diversified by adding another floor above the ground and levitating the roof over the earth. On the upper floor, the ceiling lowers down towards the roof edge and heightens up in the center. Each of the four edges of the roof opens to a different view: the mountain, the valley, the village and the sky.
Responding to these rich surroundings, each edge is flipped up to make four different spaces with different views. In the corners where the roof edges were left unflipped , the upper level floor is cut through to the ground to connect the two levels.
The residents are the couple and two cats, but the design is not inclined to either the people or the pets. Our aim was to create a small box that circulates even the slight signs of each one’s presence, where everyone can spend time in their own way.