I suggested a house with the “closed but open space”
as an alternative that can be both the house and
the literary museum. To resolve the client’s anxiety of safety, I suggested
a house that would look thoroughly closed from
outside. Given the site is elongated towards the west, an eighteenmeterlong wall was placed.
This house has an open interior which is completely
different from the outside, with all the spatial
partitions removed except for the main room. The
interior spaces are defined by the outdoor spaces.
When turning your head to the
left, you can see all the spaces inside and outside
overlaid and connected into one. The beams of light
falling from the sky intersect in the interior space.
Everywhere inside, you can feel the change of
overlaid beams of light.
Everywhere inside, you can feel the change of
overlaid beams of light. Someday when this house
becomes a literary museum and welcomes visitors,
it will be possible to connect all spaces into one by
removing just one door of the main room.
Given the site is surrounded by rice paddies and
mountains, I attempted to harmonize this house
with such a landscape by creating a look of
concrete attached with straw or bark. Concrete was
cast into the forms attached with cheap oriented
strand boards (OSB) that had previously been
exposed to the rain for a long time. After the forms
were taken apart, the OSB chips attached to part
of the concrete were left as they were. The walls
enclosing the outdoor space were made as rough as
one could feel their texture with the change of light
from both inside and outside.