J House

I renovated a room of an old Japanese apartment into a flat for new lifestyle by inserting several simple wooden boxy volumes.

The room is located in a boundary between an old town and a developing district around Tokyo. From this room on the top floor of the building, we see a scenery like Rear Window from Hitchcock below.

This flat was planned for a young family with a 2 year-old child. Considering the change of lifestyle due to child's growth within a limited floor space, I installed corners, blind spots and niches with boxy volumes in order to enrich a variety of space.

Boxy Volumes
No new walls were installed. The boxy volumes which contain storage and bathroom are partitioning the room loosely and fluidly into areas.

The volumes are layouted off the grid and the fluidity of space can be controlled flexibly by the sliding doors between volumes.

Textures and Colors
We used a variety of textures and materials in tangible areas to give a rich, tactile sensation to the experience of the space. These including lauan woods, smooth plastics, motars and rough concrete blocks.

While the main volumes and floor are finished by natural wooden material, we used vivid-colored plastic boards to partially cover the doors and shelves.

We characterized each small areas with its representative colors and tried to lead the image of space as a series of small impressive scenes.

As a background of those wooden volumes, we painted the concrete walls into different colors according to the activities. Brighter color is used for the public, living area while darker color is used for the private, resting area.

We painted the exposed ceiling white and remained the rough pattern of forms and fixtures in order to show a subtle contrast between existing elements and new elements into the space.

Domino Architects
Architect: Yusuke Oono

Contractors: Yamaki