It is a residential project for a single-family located in rich terrain near the Kinokawa River in Wakayama prefecture that extends from Kino River, with a rich mountain range spreading around. One can feel and experience the harmony prevailing between the persimmon fields along with the farmhouses, private houses, barns, the mountain range, and Kinokawa River, thus creating a very calm scenery.

It began when the client came across one of RAA’s passive residential projects, MA of Wind published in a renowned Japanese architecture magazine. It is then the client got engrossed in RAA’s passive design approach which directed them towards us.

ENVIRONMENT AND TOPOGRAPHIC RESPONSE

This area has a history of being hit by the Kinokawa River, thus causing the drowning of the surrounding private houses till the first-floor level. Therefore, the main living room’s level designed was above the assumed level of inundation. However, instead of simply raising the floor level, we created topographic features inside and outside the site by repeating the rich terrain of the surrounding mountains, on the site.

SPACE DESIGN 

The residence is a two-floor building on a raised terrain. The first floor, planned at the bottom of the terrain, more prone to flooding, consists of service spaces like warehouses and water supply areas, which the family is likely to use less on an everyday basis. A vague interior and exterior spaces were created by the uplifted terrain, also creating the outside of the half of the barn. This simultaneously favored the wind flow in the east-west direction into the semi-external and internal space. The second floor creates a good amalgamation with the surrounding nature, thus giving the feeling of harmony to the bedroom, pantry, kitchen, and living, where the family spends most of their time. This floor too, creates another semi external and semi-internal ambiguous space, setting up an environment where residents can face nature and make extensions in the future. The rainwater falling from the roof flows all through the site. So, the sewer planned is such that will permeate the entire site. The remaining soil will gradually be planted with local plants.

CONSTRUCTION & FORM 

The barn has a simple construction and form. In this design, a simple wooden frame construction method and a simple form with a gable roof were adopted. The outer wall is made of corrugated cement board, wood wool cement board, etc. Most of the internal finish is plywood with the barn having a simple structure made using industrial products. As space where humans and nature confront each other, it was decided that half of the barn would be inside and half would be outside. The architecture and the surrounding environment should be able to respond positively to one another was another intention of this design.

Building type: Single Family Residence 

Site area: 433.26 Sqm 

Building area: 84.91 Sqm 

Total floor area: 96.07 Sqm 

Structure type: Timber