This is a project to renovate a duplex house located in a quiet residential area in Setagaya-ku, Tokyo.
In this project, we avoided removing the existing finish where possible in order to reduce dismantling costs and applied the new finishing material directly onto the original finish. To be specific, flooring and large tiles were directly applied onto the existing floor material, and the original cloth-finished wall and ceiling surfaces were directly covered by plasterboard and finished with paint.
On the other hand, removal work was minimized; the main things removed were the partition wall between the dining-kitchen and the living room, which became functionally unnecessary and the cases of the sashes. The two-by-four members revealed due to the removal of the original finish have been kept exposed.
The reason why we intentionally have kept these members exposed, which demonstrate how old this house is and the manner of its construction, is because we thought that we would like to keep the previously hidden history of the house visible in the interior space.
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