Overhead, the entire house is covered with a 1-inch-thick steel roof composed of sloped planes that slant in multiple directions and at different angles. By contrast, the free-flowing void seems barely enclosed by full-height insulated, double-glazed window walls that blur the boundary between inside and out. The self-contained boxes clad with local pine on the outside and white gypsum board on the inside hold mostly private places. Measuring roughly 11 feet by 21 feet apiece, they are also close in size and proportion ' like the rooms in a traditional Japanese house. Precisely positioned at 30 or 60 degrees apart, all of the rectangular rooms relate to each other geometrically. 'The plan may look random, but even a slight shift would change everything,' explains Tsutsui. Inside, the space fans out to become the living room, followed by the 'sun hall' and the sunroom, a sequestered sitting area overlooking the tree-studded hillside. The resulting infill doubles as the home's circulation system and segues smoothly from one end of the house to the other, starting as an outdoor terrace wedged between the garage and kitchen, then morphing into a second terrace centered on the front door. Moving clockwise from the driveway, the boxes house the garage, the combined kitchen and dining room, the master bedroom, the bathroom suite, and two stacked guest rooms ' one Western style and one tatami ' that occupy the only two-story volume. Many computer-generated iterations followed until the architect and the clients agreed on a loose circular configuration defined by five boxes, glass walls, and a continuous but multifaceted roof. But after splitting the volume into discrete boxes and moving them around like chess pieces, he realized that manipulating the interstitial space was the key to enlivening the plan. The architect's initial design featured a linear string of rooms topped with roofs that pitch in different directions. Inspired by his own scheme for a Ugandan school and orphanage (2008), for which he created eight modular huts interconnected and shaded by sloping roofs, InBetween House marks a continuation of this dynamic new direction for Tsutsui. 'This situation required me to design in a freer way,' says Tsutsui of InBetween House. 'They wanted slanted roofs and they wanted large glass windows.'Ī city slicker who divides his time between practices in San Francisco and Tokyo, Tsutsui worked for Tadao Ando in Osaka for six years before hanging out his shingle and building rectilinear, concrete homes independently. 'It was kind of a contradiction,' says architect Koji Tsutsui. Inspired by the soaring karamatsu pine trees and the alpine scenery, they imagined their new house as a blend of Philip Johnson and Junzo Yoshimura. Thanks to the developer's regrading, the site was basically construction-ready when the clients took possession. In the hope of attracting a buyer, the developer cut a level strip of land across the steeply sloped, square parcel thirty years ago but was hesitant to unload it until recent financial woes forced his hand. Though neighboring houses are visible, the plot abuts a protected forest owned by Japan's imperial family. Situated within a planned second-home development not far from the station, the secluded parcel marks the end of a narrow, winding access road. The relatively recent introduction of this high-speed train route made the clients' lifestyle logistically possible it was the economic downturn, however, that made it a reality, since they were able to get a good deal on the 16,000-square-foot property. Yet for the owners, a 40-something couple with jobs in the city, the daily commute by bullet train is a small price to pay for waking up in the country. A bit of an anomaly, this house is a full-time residence located in Karuizawa, a tony vacation town 95 miles northwest of Tokyo. While the rectangular volumes are like small buildings, the amorphous areas in between are akin to the narrow passageways and odd gaps that crop up almost organically in Japanese cities. A cluster of boxes united by irregular, interstitial space, InBetween House mimics the Japanese urban condition on an architectural scale.
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