Diagonal House

Text description provided by the architects. This house, located in the middle of a dense urban residential area, was designed and built for a couple and their children. The front half of the lot belonged to the category 1 height control district, and the setback regulation imposed a strict height limit on the surrounding area. The project began by exploring ways to situate the building in such a townscape.

The client, who spends a lot of time cooking, requested the kitchen, living space, and terrace in this new house be integrated. We responded with a building comprising staggered floors, which brought about spatial continuity and smooth vertical circulation.

To further emphasize this spatial continuity, a slab above the living room was folded upwards along a diagonal line, and the topmost slab was partially raised so that the kitchen would have a large opening to the terrace. These design arrangements resulted in some features that encourage alternative activities: the sloped floor of the terrace can be used for sunbathing, and the space underneath the raised section of the topmost slab became an alcove for sleeping. They also triggered other design decisions, such as integrating platforms at a diagonal angle with the stairwell running between the staggered floors; adding a corresponding angle to storage on the opposite wall, and placing a triangular light garden at the end of a large opening in the living room to create a diagonally oriented axis that makes the room feel more spacious.

As such, the countless diagonal lines, which resulted from careful examinations of the level of visibility and the relationships between the spaces, became a design feature gesturing connectivity to the exterior space beyond the interior and terrace. We strived to create a home that sits harmoniously among the varied forms of surrounding residential buildings, and a microenvironment in which the family can feel a sense of urban life wherever they are inside the house.