Description

This project description is an excerpt from the longer article “Infill and Puntal Interventions”. For a comparative analysis and further data on this and all other categories including accompanying graphs, please see the article “A Turning Point”.

Two of the four single-family detached houses showcased here were designed by Atelier Bow-Wow, which seeks to engage with what the architects term ‘lively space’ through their architecture, while working within the pockets presented in a hyper-dense urban environment.

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“Atelier Bow-Wow – Japanese Pet Architecture,” designbuild-network.com, accessed November 16, 2013, http://www.designbuild-network.com/features/feature49404/

Following on from their earliest deliberations on the kyōshō jūtaku as materialized in the Mini House of 1999 to their own House & Atelier Bow-Wow of 2006 are the ACO House and the Sway House completed recently in 2005 and 2008. Occupying a modest corner lot in a low-rise neighborhood composed of single-family houses, the ACO House was designed for a couple working in the music industry. Working within the building regulations of having a maximum built area of no more than 70 percent and a building height of no more than 12 meters, the architects settled on a building footprint of a modest 35.51 square meters on the 51.26-square-meter site. In reflecting and amplifying the corner location of the house, the façade adjoining the two straight edges of the house is divided into five segments of equal length extending across the full height of the building and tracing the site perimeters, somewhat analogous to the traditional Japanese folding screens or byōbu that were used to enclose private spaces. These white, wooden folding panels are punctuated by windows stretching laterally across one or two of the segments at different elevations, allowing views out to the nearby trees and street, as well as permitting adequate light into the interior. A total of five floors with varying ceiling heights and room proportions were accommodated within this 10-meter-high envelope that would conventionally have yielded just three storeys by introducing a stepped section. Within this split-level configuration, Atelier Bow-Wow were able to fit in a sound-proof studio spanning part of the first and second floor, conceal the restroom under the staircase leading from the second to the third floor, provide storage space under the lower floors, and deploy an open space concept for the kitchen-living room complete with two-meter-high windows to let more light into this communal space. In addition, to maximize the floor areas, the vertical circulation is maintained along the outside walls. The arrangement of the rooms also reflects a consideration for the privacy of the owners, moving from the semi-public entryway to the library, the kitchen-living room, and finally to the bedroom and a secluded outdoor terrace.

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Originally published in: Peter G. Rowe, Har Ye Kan, Urban Intensities: Contemporary Housing Types and Territories, Birkhäuser, 2014.