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Karuizawa Counterpoint
Karuizawa Counterpoint
Kitasaku District, Japan
Project Featured on Feb 23, 2015
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Karuizawa Counterpoint
Kitasaku District, Japan
Project Featured on Feb 23, 2015
Freedom and the Unexpected
The villa is a retreat for a client who leads a busy daily life in the city, seeking to spend precious time with family or guests in a rich forest at a relaxed pace. The client desired a house whose interior could not be easily anticipated from its exterior. While considering how to design a sequence of temporal experiences leading from the approach road to the interior, wandering through the forest surrounding the sloped mountain site revealed that the temporal qualities the client sought already seemed to be present. We aimed for a house that inherently embraced the experience of wandering through the forest, filled with unpredictability.
Looking down from the upper part of the site, the undulating concrete roof appears to float on the mid-slope of the terrain. Its organic silhouette overlaps with the mountain range behind it, transforming as visitors descend the curved approach, eventually generating an arch that covers their heads. The roof touches the sloping ground above the parking lot, where visitors can instantly experience "mountain walking." Inside, the undulating roof is reflected on the ceiling surface, allowing for a similar exploration experience within the house as in the surrounding forest. The elevation differences of the sloped terrain are translated into terraced flooring inside, introducing diverse shifts in perspective for visitors.
Counterpoint of Landscapes
From the entrance, weaving through the gaps between curved surface walls resembling tree trunks and progressing toward the living room, the ceiling rises, becoming higher and more rounded, while the view opens up to the distance. Each "tree trunk" contains niches of various sizes, accommodating bookshelves, a kitchen, and a fireplace. These niches encourage diverse behaviors, giving rise to moments of accidental pleasure and discovery—such as taking a "detour" to a bookshelf during a bath or being captivated by the colors of the mountain range while cooking in the kitchen.
As visitors explore both the interior and exterior of the house, they can experience a polyphony of impressions emanating from various locations. The overlapping of architecture and nature creates a landscape that transforms and repeats, like the counterpoint in music. In this resonant interaction between the body and its environment, a forgotten sense of freedom is revived.
The villa is a retreat for a client who leads a busy daily life in the city, seeking to spend precious time with family or guests in a rich forest at a relaxed pace. The client desired a house whose interior could not be easily anticipated from its exterior. While considering how to design a sequence of temporal experiences leading from the approach road to the interior, wandering through the forest surrounding the sloped mountain site revealed that the temporal qualities the client sought already seemed to be present. We aimed for a house that inherently embraced the experience of wandering through the forest, filled with unpredictability.
Looking down from the upper part of the site, the undulating concrete roof appears to float on the mid-slope of the terrain. Its organic silhouette overlaps with the mountain range behind it, transforming as visitors descend the curved approach, eventually generating an arch that covers their heads. The roof touches the sloping ground above the parking lot, where visitors can instantly experience "mountain walking." Inside, the undulating roof is reflected on the ceiling surface, allowing for a similar exploration experience within the house as in the surrounding forest. The elevation differences of the sloped terrain are translated into terraced flooring inside, introducing diverse shifts in perspective for visitors.
Counterpoint of Landscapes
From the entrance, weaving through the gaps between curved surface walls resembling tree trunks and progressing toward the living room, the ceiling rises, becoming higher and more rounded, while the view opens up to the distance. Each "tree trunk" contains niches of various sizes, accommodating bookshelves, a kitchen, and a fireplace. These niches encourage diverse behaviors, giving rise to moments of accidental pleasure and discovery—such as taking a "detour" to a bookshelf during a bath or being captivated by the colors of the mountain range while cooking in the kitchen.
As visitors explore both the interior and exterior of the house, they can experience a polyphony of impressions emanating from various locations. The overlapping of architecture and nature creates a landscape that transforms and repeats, like the counterpoint in music. In this resonant interaction between the body and its environment, a forgotten sense of freedom is revived.
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