Description

The dense, typologically interesting complex of buildings in a suburb of Tokyo is located on an open site near the train station. Due to the location, the brief was to seek a structure that would be suitable both for single commuters and for families. The building consists of an envelope and a core, or rather many cores, which are arranged in a chessboard-like pattern in the interior. The envelope and core are linked by an interior corridor, which wraps around the interior in the form of a ring on each second level, thereby providing access to all units.

The corridor is lit from both sides, from the outside via the series of loggias, and from the inside through the rhythmic disposition of the cores. The envelope consists of elongated, narrow, bright living areas with attached loggias oriented toward the urban context, while the core zone contains two-story living rooms overlooking the tranquil interior courtyards.

The view into the garden from the kitchen – located behind the corridor – is sideways, while windows set high into the wall light the rather more introverted living space from the front. The service zones are housed between envelope and core: the access corridor, or – in those positions where the maisonettes extend across the corridor – the installation cores. The apartments are composed of the different sections of the horizontal space (the envelope) and the vertical space (the cores) into a multiplicity of forms. This fabric of different sections and types is intended to give the occupants a sense of individuality and distance from the next-door neighbour despite the density of the complex.

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Originally published in: Oliver Heckmann, Friederike Schneider (eds.), Floor Plan Manual Housing, fourth revised and expanded edition, Birkhäuser, 2011.