Month: September 2017

The site is long and narrow and the brief asked for both housing and stores to be implemented on the plot. We wanted to avoid “a wall of housing” at the street side and we didn’t want to create a blind wall on the backside of the stores, and by doing so hide the park. Instead, we connected the park and the urban street by placing the housing blocks across the site – thus creating passages in-between the stores as well as letting the existing park continue onto the pitched roof above the shops.

The original building consisted of two floors and an attic, plus a courtyard that is separated from the street by a garden wall. The inner structure of the house was in a poor condition and the rooms were too small, so it was decided to keep only the facade and build a complete new structure in the house.

This property is located in a densely developed residential neighborhood of Osaka. The client had lived on the site since childhood, so when he commissioned us to design a new house there, we began by soliciting extensive input from him because he of course knew the characteristics of the site intimately. Following these discussions, we decided we wanted to build a house that would enable him to discover new things within this familiar place.