This project was for my very own home. The house is a 40-year-old multi-family residential constructed with reinforced concrete built on a 90 m2 site in the heart of Kyoto.
My partner and I are both working and currently raising four children from an infant to schoolchild.
We only get to spend about 5 hours a day together as a family at home, excluding sleep.
My hope was to be able to spend time at home comfortably—with growing children, with my partner after putting our children to bed, or just on my own doing chores or remaining work.
The center of the house is the island kitchen, which takes up most of the room space. This is where all of us spend time between coming back home and going to bed, doing homework in the dining room, playing right next to it, etc.
I gave the house an arrangement, size and flow that allowed us to cook and clean with peace of mind while keeping eyes on the children.
The window uses a frost glass to adequately separate the private area from the outside public while letting enough light into the house. The house uses materials that could age and change over time in accordance with the growth of our children, traditional construction methods and natural materials, Japanese paper with a touch of handiwork and plaster finish. This design allows us to live in the house as if we are wrapped around by them.
Living in an age with a rampant novel coronavirus and where time spent at home has become the focus of attention, we sought our way of living as a house designer.
We believe that we were able to dig deep into what house designing really is by reviewing family structure, lifestyle, arrangement, material feel and priorities.