Forest House

Located on a river terrace along the Kokubunji cliff line, the site is surrounded on three sides by a natural forest (Seijo Mitsuike Green) on a sloping site. Fuji to the west. The project was planned in a location close to the city center, surrounded by greenery and blessed with a view of the city. Because of the slope, the first half of the building is a concrete wall structure covered with soil, and the upper two stories are mainly a wooden and steel frame structure to connect the living space with the blessed environment outside. The location of the building, adjacent to a forest but also in a residential area, was a unique feature of the site, and it was necessary to simultaneously “open” and “close” the building to the surrounding environment. The process began with finding the appropriate height of the hip wall that surrounds the living space to cut off the line of sight from the surrounding houses and the road in front of the building, while at the same time ensuring a sense of openness to the natural environment. The height of the hip wall is a simple downward and upward slope for each floor, and by drawing a sloping ridge line that crosses the corner of the square plane, the artificial planar orientation of the land and building is given a displacement. Furthermore, by shifting the volumes of the overlapping upper and lower floors and the roof without aligning them, we weakened the edge of the interior area, which is strengthened by the waist wall.
　The structure invites visitors to move around to the upper floors and opens up at the top floor. I wanted the house to be a place where the architecture does not forcibly frame the exterior as much as possible, and where the shifting natural environment and the movement of the residents in their daily activities continually change their impression of the space.