Some notes, observations & remarks on drawings & texts
Golden ratio hidden behind
Complexity is created within a defining grid, where a rich order of rooms, courtyards and gardens are arranged as a matrix of squares and golden sections, and together these compositional moves build a new and radically judicious suburban villa.
Landscapestrategy:Entry
The house is centrally located on the site, but the entry is hidden on the side of the house. The dense landscape attempts to erase the existence of entrance. The staircase demarcates the end of undomesticated area and identifies the formal entrance.
InfluencedbyAndreaPalladio
This building combined the order and symmetry of classical structures with the everyday functional imperatives of local households. Andrew explored the essential and comfortable living spaces for each function within the strict proportion.
DOORS
Identical doors connect the whole internal space and all the doors align. From the room, people can see across the garden, over the kitchen and catch a view of the bedroom. Their sense of privacy comes from nothing other than distance.All the doors open, the rooms disappear.
Veranda:Ambiguousspace
The house is equal in length to the verandah, but as the sequential inverse; the house and verandah slip past one another across a central axis, creating a frustrated symmetry.
Unprogrammed activities are placed around the veranda which makes it multifunctional.
Stone as part of landscaping that creating framework for movement, visual definition and establishes different use areas in the landscape. Stone as steps randomly placed around the perimeter of the house navigate changing elevations and define a variety of “places.”
Proportionandcomposition
The rhythm and proportioning of the pavilions and rooms are rigorous and sophisticated. It seems that we can also perceive the order of palladian style architecture and golden ratio from the elevation.
Stricted proportion and composition makes the building extraordinary, even though nothing is customized.
Soft enclosure: Curtain
Translucent curtain separates the indoor living space and the untended garden. and it provides a certain amount of privacy, but not much.
The railing of the curtain purposedly lined up with the top of vertical cement sheets in order to create a sense of harmony.
Common Material: Cement sheet.
The cladding material is common local cement sheets, Andrew used its properties to create the exterior cladding through re-organization, arrangement and re-composition.
Collectively they constitute a seemingly ordinary house as one artfully made – you’ve seen it all before but never like this.
Elevated Floor
Horizontal floor and roof contest the slightly sloped topography.
Also it can be a counter strategy for extreme weather.
House with a Guest Room, Andrew Power Landscapestrategy:StoneStudioapartment:
-Small house with full function that single person needs.
- Each room represents a kind of everyday life in the urban environment.
- In a limited space, designer need to decide what function does a single person need.
-Bath, cooking, sleep, hobby and work.
StreetasOutdoorLivingArea
The centre of Domesticity is not happening inside the apartment, the street side tiny outdoor living area significantly enlarged the space.
8apartmentson64m
2 block
- 8 separate entrances, temporarily separate the tiny living space and crowded urban environment.
- Each apartment more or less contains green spaces either inside or outside.
Loft
- Loft space has been designed as bed space or storage space to maximize the internal space.
Void space reduces the sence of depression and emphasized the main activity space.
Ambiguousspace:UndefinedNook
Is this nook a wardrobe? or can it be a storage space for anything?
The clothes hanger hook up the timber floorboard.
Ambiguousspace:Studyorkitchen or Bath
Under different circumstances, the desk can be used differently. It can be kitchen, study and make up space.
Apartment House in Tokyo, Ippei Takahashi
Exposedstructuralelements
Exposed structural elements without cladding system to increse the height clearance and further emphasized the essential living elements with minimal ornament.
- Adolf Loos said “ Ornament is crime”, it works here.
Potplants
Pot plants disrupt the white ceramic tiles of bathroom while defining the living space.
Relationshipwithurban environment
Large sliding windows and curtain constitute the wall.
Doubled corridors
The veranda and internal corridor horizontally parallel to each other. Although floor material varies and separated by sliding doors, the space seems connected and two space can potentially consitute a bigger outdoor living space.
continuous windows
The long strip windows imply the orientation of domesticity.
FloatingRoof
In this section, the roof seems floating.
Freestandingmasonrywall
The partition wall unlike nornal walls, it separates the internal walkway and lounge space but it is not fully enclosed.
Jindong House, Joshua DuncanExhaust Roof Vent
The exhaust roof vent protruded out.
Outdoorlight
The outdoor light disrupt the continuous vertical lines of the cladding.
Corrugatedmetalsheet 2/3
The dense continuous vertical corrugated metal sheet echoes the roof, which implies the elongated internal spaces.
Low-set windows 1/3
The unusual low-set windows imply the private space behind the wall. It is the perfect way to protect the privacy while letting in the daylight.
Jindong House, Joshua DuncanPowder room
The powder room allocated next to the swimming pool, but the door open towards the other side. Stand geometric shape imply a sense of order.
Bedroomspace
The curved wall is contesting with the regular square volumes, the half enclosed bedroom space implying some privacy.
Hidden tilted Kitchen
The tilted kitchen inside the cabinet.
Visual connection
The fixed glazed window framed the view through the whole elongated space. Visually connected each spaces while defining the centre point.
Fascia blend into
The painted fascia attempts to blend into the context.
PowderRoomdisappeared
The mirrored facade of the powder room expanding or distorting spatial containment. And it disappeared in the space.
Centered window
The reflective glass somehow expanded the space and visually connected all spaces.
Fireplace
The fireplace defines the centre point of the masonry wall and shared by both inside and outside.
Whitemasonrywall
The white masonry wall strongly demarcates the boundary of the space and separated the interior space and external environment.
The window that frames an interior’s relationship with nature is absent.
The position of window breaks the balance created by the symmetrical facade.
Boundaries
The spatical boundaries are not achieved in usual architectural terms, the physical boundaries (polycarbonate) maintain transparency.
The polycarbonate sheet and untamed vegetation formed the “wall” together.
Elevated floor
Nature is neither confined to containersorbroughtinside.
The soil and a natural ground line are maintained and carry through. The raised deck allow unsealed ground and flood water to carry through.
The elevated deck imply the domestication of the site and somehow created the space of domesticity.
Garden House, Baracco+ WrightVoid
The void further emphasized the openness of the facade and enhanced the vertical connection between horizontal floors.
The railing above echoes the shape of void.
Curtain
A further layer of domesticity beyond the glazed interior space is added through the use of curtain. The curtain provides the extension of space and some privacy.
Steel column
The thin steel post positioned to the edge of concrete slab to increase the sensation of openness.
Garden and House, Ryue Nishizawa SANAA
The staircase
The house unfold upwards, the steel staircase goes through the platforms to connect all the interior spaces.
No wall?
The building seems to have no walls. In fact, the glazed walls set back from the facade and created the illusion of “no wall”.
Garden and rooms
Garden are interspersed with rooms on each floor created screens of plants. The garden also demarcate the ambiguous edge of the floor without walls.
Two entrances of the 1st floor perpendicularly located, the timber column separates them.
Sunlight getting refracted, blurred and softened and eventually light up the space.
pendantlamp
The pendant light deliberately installed in the center of triangular space.
Staircase
The steel staircase positioned to the edge of the sunroom with lightweight structure which allows maximized light pemeability.
House in Sonobe, Tato Architects
Triangleswithinrectangularplan
The building’s floor plan is arranged as a square grid, with internal walls positioned at 45 degrees to the main elevation. Thus, the different functional zones been created.
Triangularsunroom
The triangular sunroom with double storey high ceiling makes the space become the focal point of the internal space.
Kitchen
The dinning table placed next to the window imply the kitchen behind.
Double Pitched Roof
The double pitched roof through the use of a second ceiling of thin timber sheets which allows the light to spread and fall from above evenly.
The living area getting filled by the warm and soft ambient light.
House in a Forest, Go Hasegawa and Associate
Offsettedspace
The offsetted space becomes the service area.
Slidingglazeddoor
The low-set sliding glazed door relates to human scale. It also helps to refract the sunlight and brings in the softened light.
Simplicityoftheexterior
Dark glavanised steel as the single material for the exterior, it implys the concealment of the house. And contrast to the richness of the interior.
Balcony
Multi-purpose.
The balcony can be used as storehouses in winter or as places for drying laundry. It represents certain lifestyle.
Roof
The reflective silver pitched roof overhangs without flashing, gutter and downpipes.
Mailbox and doorbell are integrated into the exterior walls, thus they are no longer independant to the building.
Cladding
The different sized cladding sheets imply the different internal spaces behind.
On the ground floor, it is more about library. Inside the space, reading is a solitary and silent act but the upper floor has been designed for conviviality and socialising
Flooring
The tiled floor demarcates the boundary of the site.
House in Kyodo, Go Hasegawa and AssociateTranslucentglass
The natural light has softened before being brought into the interior.
Patio
The patio play the roles of mainstream enough sunlight, ventilation inside the house.\
Framed by and reflected in the surrounding windows, a single dogwood occupies the end of the sunken garden which is minimalist decked and flanked by glass interior.
louvre
The louvre horizontally connects volumes and scatter lights inside the space.
Differentheight
The ground floor designed prone to human scale, it is more solitary.
The upper floor is bright with abundant natural light.
Extendeddomesticity Woodenbridge
The wooden bridge runs across the inner garden and connects two separated volumes.
The integrity of the inner garden is not impaired by the wooden bridge.
Courtyard
The courtyard is to a certain extent open to the environment without impairing the privacy. Also as an important intermedia space, both in terms of the indoor climate and communication.
House in Tsukimiyama, Tato Architects
Annex-stylebathroom
Curtain used to partition the bathroom and laundry space off as a section of the courtyard.
Toilet inside the cabinet
Grids
-Grids to design the facade
-Exercise of abstract compositional work
-Minimal ornamentation divided by contrasting open and closed panels.
House for a Young Couple in Tokyo, Junya Ishigami
Indoorgarden
Inverting the outside world onto the building interior.
Curved line of soil makes it mark on the floor of the living room, as if vegetation quietly trespassing into the man-made structure. After a period of time, the indoor and outdoor space will integrate together.
SeparatedBathroom
Separated bathroom positioned away from the main living area as a protrusion into the outdoor area.
“It is somewhere between these two poles that the architect operates. The architect orchestrates materials together in a way that has coherence, both formally and materially (and with materials that are becoming ever thinner).”
A. Strong materials’ accumulation (pulled together) existed before formed space existed.
B. Space contained the daily moment is about composition and functionality perception.
Two branches of which stretch to a single end - space is a reversive perception of substance, consequently thickness of material incapable to support space.
A. HOTEL PETRA (2016) ROBERT POLIDORI
B. Some New Items for the Home, Part I (1988) Jasper Morrison Studio
“Suburban houses of this period are characterised by endless extensions and changes by their owners, the result an agglomeration of rooms and details built sequentially without formal coherence. The interiors are something else again and, in a world where the choice of, and access to, so many materials far exceeds our needs, the result is rarely without a generous dose of cheesiness.”
There is no correlation between the meaning of a space that has lost its order and composition before and after its extension and expansion. The meaning of the material is served after the established functional atmosphere, not dominated.
“The project eschews questions about materials, focusing instead on exploring the spatial relationships offered by such an organisational programme.”
The composition of space comes from interweaving, stacking, repeating, and interspersing. The sensory perception of space comes from interaction and experience afterwards. The decorative role of the materials themselves is intended to set the mood, not create it.
Architects normally use different materials to create atmosphere or define the space which relates to conceptual abstraction. However, Jonathan in this article evokes us to think about perceptual abstraction. He thinks that we should not deny the plasterboard its materiality quality. The thickness and color of the paint over the plaster board can define a range of atmosphere and change focus to spatial relationship and it space itself.
The Thickness of Paint
Jonathon Woolf
“Kazuo Shinohara’s work can be seen as a consistent endeavour to set emotion at the centre of domestic space by means of reconciling two opposite poles that had been present since his first projects and writings.
These poles may be best expressed by a set of overlapping dualities: urban/ domestic, sacred/profane, formal/informal, order/chaos.”
“In a text of1963 he states: “Tradition may be a point of departure for creation, but never a home to come back to.” It is clear that from the very beginning his interest in tradition is instrumental.
A leap forward towards a contemporary territory.”
“Yet he was well aware that only a compromise with reality can render a theory really powerful, capable of having an influence in everyday life: only by confronting actual needs (be these structural or functional or budgetary) can a theory reveal its true potential to change things and be meaningful..”
“Shinohara sees a necessity to provide for spaces in which human beings can detach themselves from the vertigo of modern life”
“But if structure is a key element for Shinohara in order to generate a new sort of spatial experience starting with, but departing from, traditional architecture, another one is movement”
In Shinohara’s work, the opposite or overlapping dualities are often present, as in his two famous works, House in white and the house of Earth. The House in White imposes a formality on the dweller, but the house of earth imposes a noncodified gesturality on the occupant. Through his criticism of the dualities of domesticity from many aspects, he created the framework for his design.
structure and movement
Kazuo Shinohara:
beyond Styles, beyond Domesticity Enric Massip-Bosch
“we should aim at city forms endowed with an infinitely tolerant neutrality, thereby allowing beautiful clashes between innumerable personalities.”
“house should be based on an armature of ideas independent of the shape and environment of the site.”
“ My planning rule is to extract the floor area and the number of people, and of these two, I consider the floor area to be the only salient condition.”
“The architect must take responsibility for the design. But this responsibility is not limitless.”
“The scenes here are no more than incidental. There is no obligation lo directly reflect the starting point of the design. Furthermore, from the moment construction is complete and the house is handed over, the architect has no right to speak.”
Shinohara thinks the Japanese architects should make freestanding houses without restricted urban design strategy, and the city of tomorrow should contain infinitely tolerant neutrality. Furthermore, although sites are getting smaller and shapes are getting awkward, architects should pay more attention to the specific ways of life/living and design better living spaces. For example, if the floor area cannot provide comfortable living space for a number of people, the design would lose control and go beyond the architect’s limited responsibility.
Architects can initially design the lifestyle and scene of the house, but they cannot force occupants to use the space as their intention.
The Autonomy of House Design
Kazuo Shinohara
“To the extent that something appeals to people, it has value.”
“From ‘ either-or architecture’ to both ‘both and architecture’- I see the shift as being from ‘ have to architecture’ (in modernism, being functional, reasonable, and ensuring a close relationship between the elevation and the composition of the inner were a must) to ‘can-be architecture’ (the ability to embrace different definitions and designs such as the ones shown later in referring the new generations’ house design).”
“ Can be architecture, there are no definite or shared principles with which to evaluate what is good or bad, any design could quite simply be comsumed and given away”
“Japanese architects designed houses at first relying on and then questioning modernism. They have brought variousarchitectural ciphers to the fore, including function, planning ,structure , and ‘space’. In the 1990s, following important shifts In Japanese society, architectural thinking itself, and their attitude toward design, new generations of architects began to pursue different ideas and approaches to design. Thanks to these, we may now want to rethink our own housing from now on.”
The Japanese modern architectural era was born when private ownership of the land to citizens. Though people built many tiny houses on tiny lots, it promoted the development of Japanese architectural design. Thanks to those Japanese architects who brought various architectural ciphers to the fore and reshaped the way we think about architecture.
A History of the individual, House in Modern Japan
Hiroyasu FujiokaSejima and Nishizawa’s work integrated the formal quality of transparency, blankness, minimalism, abstraction and nonhierarchical programming. They encourage people to make urban life more toward the self-conscious aesthetic event. The blankness of their architecture attempts to catch people’s attention of aesthetic inhabitation.
A disorderly and unsystematic lifestyle is considered to be undisciplined. Their architecture attempts to bring people aestheticized life. Thus, control yourself.
Control yourself!
Matthew AllenFala used storytelling and a blog-esque way to introduce the difficulties and situations of contemporary architectural practice. The “Gloriously repeating” be regarded as the simple fascination of architecture and their humour. The repetitive learning and unlearning, repetitive work using the same tools and redundant communication with clients is an architect’s daily routine because the “architecture is a process, not static.” On the contrary, the self-deprecation tone expressed their enthusiasm for architecture.
Gloriously Repeating, Fala
“The entrance point of the house is at the end of a long living space that seems to extend the entire length of the building. ”
“This is not, however, an open-plan house. It is a house of rooms that have an open spatial connection between them. We have sometimes called this ‘a plan of rooms without corridors”
“ The largest internal room of the house is like a multi-use courtyard, often with a slightly irregular shape, surrounded by other subsidiary small rooms with more specific functions.”
“He is finding ways of maintaining open and fluid spatial connections between rooms and at the same time giving each room a clearly defined sense of enclosure and spatial presence.”
2 so B r E 4 2,5 0,5
+0.57 6
±0.00 -0.25 7
+1.81 +1.56 5
11.875 8.125 8.14 12.00 73.07º
+1.81 9 +1.81 +1.56
+1.81 +1.56 8
A Cota sup. xemeneia Upper level chimney
176.48º 176.48º A
±0.00 -0.19 3 ±0.00 -0.25 2 ±0.00 10
±0.00 -0.25
E: 1/100 ±0.00 ±0.00 13
41
1
Ground floor
“This is a wonderfully sophisticated roughness.” -Wonderfully sophisticated roughness can be explored on Markli’s plan, spatial arrangement and materiality of the house. -A plan of rooms without corridors -Corridor space being adopted.
“Extremely articulate and specific to a contemporary way of living to which the architect is highly sensitive.”
“One can imagine a diversity of ways of furnishing and inhabiting this open plan of rooms.”
“This is a loose and relaxed construction that looks effortless. On closer inspection, it is extremely thoughtful and precise.”
Room Non-Room, Florian Beigel and Philip Christou-Transitional space between inside and outside, half private and half public.
-Transitional spaces are very often leftover spaces without a specific purpose. But those ambiguous are very important to make a good house.
- Use outdoors(Balcony) instinctively.
- The fucntion of terrace purely as a by-product of living room. (Engawa)
-inside and outside, architecture and city, individual and
Lively Balconies, Go Hasegawa
society, imagination and space.
-Smallness provides a very intimate feeling, something a big park or big river cannot do.
-People must be positive towards the use of space
-Privacy is a kind of atmosphere that you can create by using architecture, the garden, the street and furniture.
-understand the concept of transparency
-Roji and the in-between space are not spaces defined by the government, people living around a Roji decide how to use it.
Community Spheres, Ryue Nishizawa
-Learn from the past by bringing something of it into the future in a very contemporary way is something that every architect must do!
On the Genealogies of the Japanese House after 1945, Kenjiro Hosaka
On the table Quaderns, Bates Stephen
Peter Markli’s spatial gestalt, Florian Beigel and Philip Christou
