House in Tomatsu, Osaka, Japan - Ido, Kenji Architectural Studio as featured in the book Architizer A+Awards 2015

A+ Architecture - House in Tamatsu

This residential house by Ido, Kenji from our Architizer A+Awards book is a truly captivating piece of microtecture

Regular Phaidon.com readers will know by now that we launched our new book, Architizer A+Awards 2015  at a gala awards ceremony hosted by the great architecture website Architizer in New York a couple of weeks back. To celebrate its publication we're bringing you some of the most exciting projects from the book over the coming weeks. Today we're looking  at a really interesting residential project in Osaka, Japan.

 

House in Tomatsu, Osaka, Japan - Ido, Kenji Architectural Studio as featured in the book Architizer A+Awards 2015
House in Tomatsu, Osaka, Japan - Ido, Kenji Architectural Studio as featured in the book Architizer A+Awards 2015

This house is situated in the urban area of Osaka, and so has a limited floor area - just 463 square feet, in fact. The surroundings consist of a varied, disjointed mix of small factories, and small office buildings. The adjacent buildings were too close to let natural light enter into the original house. Therefore, one of the crucial client requests was to make a family room as large as possible and bear no pillars or load-bearing walls, allowing natural light to freely enter the house.

 

House in Tomatsu, Osaka, Japan - Ido, Kenji Architectural Studio as featured in the book Architizer A+Awards 2015
House in Tomatsu, Osaka, Japan - Ido, Kenji Architectural Studio as featured in the book Architizer A+Awards 2015

Due to structural reasons, the large opening which faces the street could not be placed on the first floor of the building. As a result, the second floor’s volume was rotated 14 degrees from the main building axis; thus, interstitial spaces between the rotated wall and the outer wall turned into voids. The skylight was positioned in the upper section of the void, allowing natural light to enter the family room in the first floor. 

 

House in Tomatsu, Osaka, Japan - Ido, Kenji Architectural Studio as featured in the book Architizer A+Awards 2015
House in Tomatsu, Osaka, Japan - Ido, Kenji Architectural Studio as featured in the book Architizer A+Awards 2015

The white, box-shaped building is completely distinct from the buildings of the surrounding neighbourhood. The interior has a simple yet charismatic character, including box-shaped, cantilever stairs floating in the main void.

 

House in Tomatsu, Osaka, Japan - Ido, Kenji Architectural Studio as featured in the book Architizer A+Awards 2015
House in Tomatsu, Osaka, Japan - Ido, Kenji Architectural Studio as featured in the book Architizer A+Awards 2015

There are 100 great projects like this featured in Architizer A+Awards 2015 and we'll be bringing you a good few of our favourites over the coming weeks. But if you're already convinced you can go ahead and purchase it here. The house is also featured in Phaidon's own online architectural resource The Atlas, you can read about it here

 

House in Tomatsu, Osaka, Japan - Ido, Kenji Architectural Studio as featured in the book Architizer A+Awards 2015
House in Tomatsu, Osaka, Japan - Ido, Kenji Architectural Studio as featured in the book Architizer A+Awards 2015