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A Village-like, Layered Nagaya
A Village-like, Layered Nagaya
Tokyo, Japan
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Other Projects by Aida Doi Architects
A Village-like, Layered Nagaya
Tokyo, Japan
Firm
Type
STATUS
Built
YEAR
2026
SIZE
1000 sqft - 3000 sqft
-Overview
This project is a rental housing complex comprising 30 family-oriented dwelling units organized as a layered Nagaya on a corner site.
Rather than relying on conventional shared corridors or centralized common spaces, each dwelling opens directly onto streets and passageways. Gates, terraces, and staircases are distributed throughout the site, forming a three-dimensional streetscape reminiscent of an urban village.
The project proposes an alternative model of collective housing that does not depend excessively on centralized management, allowing traces of everyday life to spill out into the city.
-What Is Shared, and How Do We Live Collectively?
The project began as a redevelopment of a former liquor distribution center site.
The fundamental objective was to create a rental housing complex in the form of a Nagaya without shared common spaces, capable of both improving the surrounding urban environment and responding to rising construction costs.
In Japan, Nagaya is often regarded merely as a legal alternative adopted on flag-shaped or narrow access sites where apartment buildings cannot easily be realized. In contrast, this project intentionally adopts the typology on an open corner site with frontage on two streets, using it as an opportunity to reconsider the nature of collective housing itself.
Contemporary apartment buildings tend to aggregate dwellings through centrally managed shared corridors and common spaces, while simultaneously separating everyday life from the city and enclosing it within controlled interior environments.
This project emerged from a question:
What exactly should collective housing share, and to what extent should living be communalized?
-Three-Dimensional Streets and an Urban Village
Realizing a 30-unit family housing complex in the form of a layered Nagaya required careful resolution of issues related to evacuation planning, circulation, and privacy. Considerable attention was therefore devoted to planning and detailing.
The structure consists of repetitive 3.9-meter grids in reinforced-concrete wall construction, while dwelling units transform according to their positional conditions, producing 30 distinct variations.
The project shares only its primary structural framework as a collective physical system. Each dwelling follows a basic sequence in which residents move from the street, through a private outdoor space, and into the living area. Because fire compartments are not required between these outdoor spaces, they can remain spatially open and continuous.
Terraces and external staircases positioned in front of each dwelling function as ambiguous intermediate zones where residents may encounter others?or avoid doing so. These outdoor spaces are privately occupied, yet their uses are intentionally left undefined.
As residents place objects, plants, furniture, and signs of everyday life within them, traces of living gradually spill outward into the streetscape. The accumulation of dwellings that do not depend excessively on centralized management produces a spatial condition reminiscent of an urban village.
This project is a rental housing complex comprising 30 family-oriented dwelling units organized as a layered Nagaya on a corner site.
Rather than relying on conventional shared corridors or centralized common spaces, each dwelling opens directly onto streets and passageways. Gates, terraces, and staircases are distributed throughout the site, forming a three-dimensional streetscape reminiscent of an urban village.
The project proposes an alternative model of collective housing that does not depend excessively on centralized management, allowing traces of everyday life to spill out into the city.
-What Is Shared, and How Do We Live Collectively?
The project began as a redevelopment of a former liquor distribution center site.
The fundamental objective was to create a rental housing complex in the form of a Nagaya without shared common spaces, capable of both improving the surrounding urban environment and responding to rising construction costs.
In Japan, Nagaya is often regarded merely as a legal alternative adopted on flag-shaped or narrow access sites where apartment buildings cannot easily be realized. In contrast, this project intentionally adopts the typology on an open corner site with frontage on two streets, using it as an opportunity to reconsider the nature of collective housing itself.
Contemporary apartment buildings tend to aggregate dwellings through centrally managed shared corridors and common spaces, while simultaneously separating everyday life from the city and enclosing it within controlled interior environments.
This project emerged from a question:
What exactly should collective housing share, and to what extent should living be communalized?
-Three-Dimensional Streets and an Urban Village
Realizing a 30-unit family housing complex in the form of a layered Nagaya required careful resolution of issues related to evacuation planning, circulation, and privacy. Considerable attention was therefore devoted to planning and detailing.
The structure consists of repetitive 3.9-meter grids in reinforced-concrete wall construction, while dwelling units transform according to their positional conditions, producing 30 distinct variations.
The project shares only its primary structural framework as a collective physical system. Each dwelling follows a basic sequence in which residents move from the street, through a private outdoor space, and into the living area. Because fire compartments are not required between these outdoor spaces, they can remain spatially open and continuous.
Terraces and external staircases positioned in front of each dwelling function as ambiguous intermediate zones where residents may encounter others?or avoid doing so. These outdoor spaces are privately occupied, yet their uses are intentionally left undefined.
As residents place objects, plants, furniture, and signs of everyday life within them, traces of living gradually spill outward into the streetscape. The accumulation of dwellings that do not depend excessively on centralized management produces a spatial condition reminiscent of an urban village.
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