House in YAKAMI
The site is located in Yakami, Onan Town, Ochi District, in south-western Shimane Prefecture, surrounded by the Chugoku Mountains. To the north and south, the site is bordered by houses with traditional Sekishu-tile roofs, while to the east and west lie a town road and a private road, beyond which the landscape opens out to fields, a river, mountains and sky. Mist settles over the area in the mornings and evenings, and the region receives snowfall in winter.
The client asked for a single-storey house with covered parking for two cars protected from winter snowfall, and an open living environment where family and friends could spend time together at ease. In response to these conditions and the client’s wishes, the central theme became how architecture might engage with the landscape through embodied experience, rather than simply consuming its beauty as a view.
The LDK (living, dining and kitchen area) occupies the centre of the plan, flanked by the parking area and bedroom wing, which buffer it from the roads on either side. Two courtyards mediate between the three volumes. Each volume is covered by a gently broken-pitch roof, with a shallow 2:10 pitch on the upper section and a 4:10 pitch at the eaves.
The shallow upper pitch keeps the building low and draws the eye from the LDK towards the landscape beyond. At the eaves, the 4:10 pitch echoes the surrounding tiled roofs while also accommodating winter snowfall. Shaped by these competing demands, the broken-pitch roof gives the three volumes a shared profile.
In the parking area, a truss structure of 105 mm square timber members spans 5,460 mm to accommodate two cars. The diagonal members of the truss continue at the same pitch as the rafters of the gabled roof connecting the three volumes. Bolted to the columns, these rafters transfer lateral forces from the LDK through the structure.
This rational structure, composed of slender and minimal elements, creates a sense of transparency, allowing views to pass through the building, across interior and exterior, and towards the landscape beyond.
The bedroom wing is organised around a family closet, with its structural plywood shear walls left exposed. Its raw materiality creates a spatial character in contrast to the openness of the LDK, adding depth to the experience of the house. In the future, the partitions between the private rooms can be removed, allowing the wing to function as a detached annex for the couple’s hobbies, connected to the LDK across the courtyard.
By responding directly to the landscape and climate of the region, as well as to the client’s way of life, the house takes on a simple yet inevitable presence. Tracing the contours of the surrounding landscape, the architecture emerges as a volume of air, gently suspended within it.
Over time, we hope that the family’s life will bring new layers of colour to the architecture, allowing it to become part of an evolving landscape.
Yoshikatsu Iriguchi / enter-archi
CREDITS
Design
enter-archi
Principal Architect: Yoshikatsu Iriguchi
Umezawa Structural Engineers
Structural Engineer: Ryohei Takeda
