Engawa House
Studio Housing
Master’s Exchange Course
Highashi-Tamagawa, Tokyo, Japan
Background
The aim of this project was to design a studio housing by extracting a key concept from the theoretical works of Kazuo Shinohara. The chosen concept was the fissure space, an interspace without function to establish a clear separation of the house interior.
The given site is located in the urban residential neighborhood of Higashi-Tamagawa in Setagaya-ku, Tokyo. The intended client consisted of a family of four with both parents being artists.
Concept
The design takes its starting point from the location of the plot, as it is situated in-between a tree-flanked street and a communal garden.
The surrounding vegetation in Tokyo’s otherwise concrete jungle makes transparency desirable yet challenging due to the proximity to the public space.
The responding proposal is the elevation of a surrounding barrier that establishes a sense of seclusion while still retaining a transparency.
Based on the concept of the fissure space, the barrier was lastly configured as the only communication in-between the interior division to empower the spatial separation and character.
The proposed transparency is moreover a response to the contemporary Japanese movement of introverted urban houses, which is bound to contribute to lifeless and unsupervised neighbourhoods.