Generous form of ‘an umbrella’
The site locates in a small residential area of Tokai region. There is a forest park consisting of deciduous broad-leaved trees over 20m tall behind the site, and a sun garden tended with care for a long time on the south. The relationship among neighbors for over 40 years provides a relaxing human relation, such as they don’t need to lock their houses, and the old house broken already and the garden were used for a hangout of housewives. These quiet nature and small society used to become fabric of an organic relationship as they combine with each other rather than stand against each other, and make a space of lives, which is climate.
When a new house would be rebuilt here, I thought that a typical form of a house, such as defining clearly the inside and outside by walls, is not suitable for this place. However, a psychological ‘house’ without unity and centrality doesn’t fit the client family consisting of 3 generations. The resolution is the form of ‘an umbrella’.
The form of ‘the hanging roof’, as one center column support a spindle shaped roof, let peripheral wall become free from structure because they don’t need support compressive force (they need to support only a little tensile force to prevent falling down). Additionally, this is convenient to make ‘borders’ adapting various relations between surrounding environment. The shape of space, as the center is the highest, and existence of the main column will provide unity and warmth for this house.
Specifically, pyramid hip hanging roof in wooden structure have the main column, it is stretched in east and west along the shape of the site, and the central point is defined at eastern point from the center to make ‘gentle-slope deck on the roof like a hill’ facing on the western forest. This hanging roof is put on the axis of the neighborhood, and peripheral walls are rotated by ‘9 degrees’ from the roof in accordance with the forest and the sunlight.
This degree provides sunny ‘engawa’ connected directly with the eastern residential area and the western forest park and the wide front poach with an eave, and improve connection with the neighborhood. Additionally, hanging roof structure enables the south boarder on the spacious engawa with continuous windows (18m wide) and about the 3m-long cantilever.
We put one umbrella on the climate of Tokai region. The opened umbrella waves generously along environment, people gather under it naturally, and they live relaxedly. The architect who is a sun of the client and lives in Tokyo is imagining the future like that.
Masahiro Harada
