project: Slit house
Architects : Eastern Design Office
location: Japan
Client: NIWAKA, INC.
Site Area: 318 square meters
Building Area: 210 square meters
Total Floor Area: 210 square meters
Structure: Reinforced Concrete
Levels: At ground level
Materials used: Concrete, Glass, Timber, Hemp carpet
Slit House by Eastern Design Office
text by
Marcia Argyriades for Yatzer
To my amazement once some architects graduate from college they forget
a fundamental course Sculpture 101. After having seen endless
architectural designs I think that the difference between good
architecture and plain architecture is the element of sculpturing used
in their designs. Others always apply this element in their designs
even subconsciously; I think that this is the case with Eastern Design
Office, of
Anna Nakamura and
Taiyo Jinno whose work we’ve seen previously on
Yatzer //
Slit Court +
House with Crest
Slit house is a reinforced concrete house which has been designed with
60 slits that act as the “windows” or rather openings to this
magnificent house. Typically, the house has no windows but is
perforated by 60 slits which run along a 22 centimeter thick wall which
has a total length of 105 meters. The architectural quality and the
unique design of this house are derived from its slits. Architects
Nakamura and Jinno claim that “no other architecture has ever been
realized by such method.” The conceptual sculpturing of the slit
design suggests another design method to be used in contemporary
architecture besides the glass-heavy one. The use of slits instead of
large openings allows for privacy in the densely packed old Japanese
city while it prevents the house from indiscreet views and in the
meantime it provides the interior with natural light.
The site is located in an old city in Japan, the sites are very scarce
and many private residences stand in a row one beside another. The
plot which Eastern Design Office had to design a house for is a
relatively difficult plot as the dimensions of the site are 50 meters
in length and 7.5 meters in width. Each of the two narrow façades
respectively overlook a street on the western façade and a river in the
eastern façade. A long, four meter tall wall was designed to enclose
on purpose this long and narrow site. The slits which have been
created parametrically open the enclosure of the reinforced concrete
wall. Each slit has a 14 centimeter width that screens the inner
privacy from the exterior views.
Someone would question whether this house is lit properly and
adequately by natural light and the answer is YES! The slits make the
retina of the eye sense the light and create impulses therefore making
us more sensitive to light. As seen from the pictures the interior of
the house is lit beyond our expectations. During different times of
the day the house is lit accordingly and the light projections vary
from minute to minute, day to day, and season to season. The light
passing through the slits creates a sense of nostalgia in the Japanese
spatial arrangement and has an aesthetic quality as that of
contemporary art. Eastern Design suggests this architectural design as
one method of living in a dense residential area such as this one in
Japan where each house stands side by side.
Slit House was designed for an 80 year old woman; the house presents
her both a life space with a soft light and an interesting experience
of scale unlikely in a house. The light streams which surpass the
slits make reference to Fusuma or the Shoji (sliding doors used to
separate rooms), in Japanese traditional architecture or a stream of
light from skylight of ancient stone architecture. The challenge in
designing this house for the old lady was to experiment with an
innovative design method in architecture. The concept of composing the
architecture based on the slits figures the architecture, while the
simple method distinguishes the outline of the entire figure and
abstracts the architectural attitude.
The house compromises of a long, slender, and spacious living room. In
the middle of the room there is a table that is big enough for ten
people where the family and their guests can gather; the light through
the slit shines in there. The bedroom and the living room are painted
in white, and soft light that enters from the slit multiplies and
progresses into the room. In the future, the house can be used as a
guesthouse of the company clientele. The room can be used as guest
room at a hotel, and if the partition or shoji is removed it can be
used as one big, long space. Moreover, if all the partitions are
brought down a large space will be created which can be used as a
conference hall. If that is the case, then it cannot be thought of as
a private house, instead the scale of a space like a Gothic church will
appear.
The architecture of Slit House has a “silent ambiance just like in the
midst of solitary jar and a poetic clearness as like in an endless
spatiality.” The office of Anna Nakamura and Taiyo Jinno are in a
continuous quest for various potentials of the slits and their
applications in other projects as well. We have to admit that it is a
breath-taking house which was clearly designed to suit the needs of the
site and the requests of the owners. The ever-changing motion of the
sun creates a warm touch on the skin as the dramatic light penetrates
through the slits. The light moves, it never stops, night comes, it
disappears, but shortly it will reappear in a happy new day the next
morning!
The Slit House has its own light age
Dawn // watery light comes into the house through the slits // the room becomes bright faintly
9:30AM // a sequence of delicate light reflects to header of slits appear
10:30AM // sunlight pierces through angled slits at first
11:00AM // the sunlight pierces through all slits
…the transitory time interval lets us feel the running sun and makes us anticipate the forthcoming dusk.
And it shortens little by little.
And watery light fills the house again with soft brightness.
Then the night comes before long.
from yatzer
