1. 20 June 2005

    The Very Small Home

    Azby Brown

    2005-06-20

    Azby Brown details 18 beautifully designed compact Japanese homes. The mantra of constraints fostering creativity is beautifully reinforced in the book, with incredible solutions to space problems.

    Kengo Kuma mentions the essay An Account of my Hut, written by a Japanese poet and hermit, looks like an interesting read.

    But home design is largely about character, specifically about enhancing our relationships to each other, giving ourselves an environment that has a strong identity to play off of. The character may be lighthearted, or subdued, or natural, or bright, or handmade, but it is the big idea that does the most to suggest it. 13

    the best conceived small house can suggest a larger, richer life and allow us to be fuller human beings. Its all about developing a design that takes our own life story and enhances the good parts, maybe adding a few passages about who we want to be. 16

    Please note that I’m taking all this to heart getting ready to move into a college dorm next fall.

    My Favorites

    • 19: Just look at that house! The 4×4 House is a reinforced concrete tower, four stories, with the fourth slightly taller and offset from the rest of the house. Absolutely stunning.
    • House in Moto-Azabu: The bottom floor is mostly dedicated to parking the couples two cars, in glass walled bays each with their own access to the street(!). A metal mesh spiral stair allows access to the next two floors; the second a bedroom for the couple and the third for living and dining. 30
    • House in Naka-Ikegami: Ingenious kitchen counter rolls out from the wall into the center of a small kitchen to provide a center island when extra cooking space is needed. Sweet loft/master bed. 34
    • Glass Shutter House: Two walls of this three story house are glass and retractable, like the walls on coffee shops that open overhead. The bottom floor is a restaurant, the other two a home.
    • T.R. House: Three stories, the third cantilevers out over a driveway. Stunning and simple. 70
    • House in Kamakura: Tucked amidst a few beautiful old trees, built around their roots, and playfully designed. The foundation wall curved outward as it rises to avoid the roots of a cherry tree. 78
    • Engawa House: Nine sliding doors rin the length of this rectangular home, sited behind the owners parent’s home. A cabinet wall fills the end opposite the doors, with sliding windows above it the entire length. The spaces are meant to be flexible – the entire house minus the bath and master bed on the far end is simply a box. Partitions make the wall between kitchen and the children’s room. 86

    I especially like the ideas for nooks and bathrooms Brown gives in the details section. 105 – 109

    tags:

  2. ← Lord Foul's Bane | Lost in Norway →