CUBO Design Architect

This is a house for a couple of French artist (husband) and Japanese wife who are based in Japan, France and the United States and very interested in aesthetic of Japanese garden, culture and architecture.

The house is nestled quietly on the top of hill in Kamakura in Japan, a historic ancient city, and facing to wonderful scenery, overlooking the Shonan coastline and facing Mt. Fuji, a symbol of Japan, in the distance.

The clients became interested in Japanese culture through Japanese Tea Celemony and Japanese garden gradually for long time. Finally they decided to move in Japan. This is a place for them to settle and live to the end with their dream.

In addition to their comfort in the house, they required a function to invite guests from foreign country and a feast for the eyes through this architecture like guest house.

In response to the requests from clients, we defined architectural themes below:

- Deal with symbolic and beautiful view and nature as architecture is always response to site.
- Japanese modern style that incorporate traditional methods, practices and materials.
- Guests can feel aesthetic of Japan through the architecture comfortably.
Façade is completely closed design to street side by concrete wall to emphasize privacy, while it is fully opened to the good direction of the landscape as much as possible. The architectural layout and open-close study make it possible to remove disturbing structure from field of view, so that you can focus on the majestic nature and wonderful scenery only.

One of Characteristic of Japanese architecture that represents Sukiya building is beauty of continuous eaves. That’s not only design, but also function to cut rain and direct sunlight.

We design the traditional continuous eaves in a modern way by making it sharp and thin in details as well as challenging using new material such as steel plate in structure and finish.

We also believe that Japanese architecture has been powerfully but delicately designed, taking advantage of the potential of the materials themselves.

We avoided, as much as possible, installing industrial finishes represented by recent plastic houses, while using traditional Japanese materials, such as granite, Japanese paper, black plaster, wood lattice and louver for total coordination, so that all the foreigner can feel Japanese features.

We hope these hybrids of Japanese modern design make integration with site, nature and deep exchange with people who visit this place.