The site is located halfway up a hill that gently rises from the seaside.
On the south a horizon extends beyond the Pacific, on the west a range of peninsulas can be viewed, on the north foliage of countryside forest surrounds the plot, and on the east about two hundred years old broadleaf trees spread their canopies as if covering the half of the site.
Since four sides respectively have its distinctive scenery, it is not suitable to set "front/back" to architecture as typically done.
Instead, a form that enables "all four side front" was to be sought.
Two large laminated lumber of a large section with 2,200 millimeters high beam, assembled in complete point symmetrical four square frames, were made. Middle points of each side of the beam are sandwiched with combined columns made of natural woods.
Then, they are raised up in the air at 2,200 millimeters gap, which is same as the beam height, so as to create a watchtower-like structure that its spatial corners are fully open to the outer environment.
In addition, the frame body of 2,200 millimeters high beams, which should be named walls rather than beam members, includes space by becoming a kind of space frame.
Whether to add it to the upper layer or the lower layer is arbitrary. That is, a minimum three-dimensional matrix, whose all sides respectively have two digits, is composed. Making the most of it, slabs of each square were placed either at the upper or the lower edge of beams, and so the height of ceiling and the eye level or a way to enclose the space and shading were manipulated. Thus, we intended to transform the existing abundant natural environment to a cozy living milieu.
Nonetheless, my interest resides in the fact that architecture as a structural being is composed of a complete symmetrical order, setting aside the freeness of response to the surrounding environment of this spatial composition.
An order independently stands in the flux of nature that variously alters. Completed and became a part of the world's existence, I feel that to-be-generated wave or whirl of the surrounding of the setting is the subject of design.
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「GA houses 141」 2015.3/A.D.A.EDITA Tokyo