House in Minamikaruizawa, JIA 25th Annual Architectural Selection


This villa was the first house I designed with Takeshi Ueno for my parents, who are now deceased, and it is an important building that provided me with valuable experience.
I designed this villa at the same time that I was designing the IBM building in Makuhari at Taniguchi and Associates where I was working at the time.
The house was about the size of a toilet in this building, but its presence was so great that as the design progressed, I recall feeling a strange sensation as if I had become one with this architecture.
Looking at the large 1/20 scale model, he said, "This window here will let the morning sun in, so it will be a refreshing breakfast. A window on the staircase landing would let the breeze in. If we build a window on top of that, the light from the window will hit the wall and illuminate the room." As I was designing, I felt warm as if the light shone on my body, and cool as if a breeze hit my cheeks. I felt as if this architecture was an extension of myself, as if the distinction between my self and others had disappeared.

It was a sense of place filled with pleasure. When the building was actually completed, it was exactly as I had imagined it would be when I designed it. The space, the view, and the light and wind that fill it are still an unforgettable memory for visitors and an irreplaceable place of relaxation and healing for the family. In designing a large building, we proceeded with the design as a program solution, accumulating logical thinking. It was a precise design centered on objective thinking. On the other hand, in this house, I experienced the exact opposite: a design based on subjective sensibilities. I strongly recognized that these two opposing stances are both very important in design.
In particular, through the design of the villa, I learned that the sense of unity between self and others, in which the distinction between self and others has disappeared, is what Louis Kahn meant when he said, "Architecture has life in it," and that the exciting and joyful state of being at one with architecture is nothing but the JOY that he referred to. It was an important experience for me.