THERE IS ONE NIGHT, CALLED THE NIGHT OF NIGHTS, ON WHICH THE GATES OF THE SKY OPEN WIDE AND THE WATER IN THE JUGS TASTES SWEETER - Jorge Luis Borges

On a small corner plot on a busy street, we designed this three story house. The site is almost absorbed by the busy street. As the road is so close we used an old aikido trick of working with the context rather than fighting it, and extended the road into the building to form the parking space. (Yes, even on such a small plot of land space for a car is requested…) The site is not ideal, but kind of typical for Tokyo. The views from the rooms are cut and crossed by electrical wires dangling in front of the windows. The ground floor contains the master bed room, and the bathroom. The living room with the kitchen are on the second floor and two more bedrooms are on the third floor. A roof garden with planters is placed on top. The three floors are designed like wooden boxes stacked on top eachother, that are slightly twisted to provide balconies while maximising useable floor space per floor. To provide some sort of privacy from the surrounding buildings, all the windows have dark tinted reflective glass. At the back of the building, a light well penetrates the roof to provide daylight for the third floor corridor and living room. Aldo Rossi writes about an architecture that stands silent and cold, we believe that this project is a perfect example of that kind of architecture.

Keywords: Small House Tokyo, Wooden Facade, Roof Garden, Toplight, Dark Window.