2 COMMENTS
Designed by Ryue Nishizawa of SANAA, this house of floating concrete planes and glass walls contrives an ascetic domesticity tempered only by nature
Tokyo is a city of juxtapositions. From Zen temples to temples of Mammon, falling-down timber shacks next to polished glass towers, and tiny pocket gardens near immaculate formal planting. So this four-storey house by Ryue Nishizawa (one half of SANAA) appears to fit right in by definition.The question is whether this is enough.
The structure is articulated as a series of concrete slabs, apparently floating, though on closer inspection there are three differently-shaped concrete columns holding up the structure as well as a spindly corner metal column − Le Corbusier’s Dom-Ino frame revisited 99 years on. The ground floor is a caravan-like arrangement of seating, storage, kitchen and dining. A lightweight metal staircase connects all the floors. The first floor accommodates a tiny bedroom (open above and below) and an L-shaped open balcony with an outdoor meeting room.
On the second floor, the stair becomes enclosed, and there is an outdoor space leading to a self-contained bathroom at the rear of the building. Rising up to the third floor there is a second bedroom, a private terrace to the front and a linear stair, again outside at the rear, leading up to the roof terrace. Here a circular cut-out in the roof slab presents a Modernist architectural motif that is visible from the street. It is difficult to ignore the prosaic concerns that arise from minimal railings both on the staircase and the roof terrace, but