The Library of Congress has announced the winners of the 2016 Holland Prize, which recognizes the best single-sheet, measured drawing of a historic building, site, or structure, completed to the standards of the Historic American Building Survey (HABS), Historic American Engineering Record (HAER), or the Historic American Landscapes Survey (HALS).

The prize is awarded annually to “increase awareness, knowledge, and appreciation of historic resources throughout the United States while adding to the permanent HABS, HAER, and HALS collection at the LOC, and to encourage the submission of drawings among professionals and students. By requiring only a single sheet, the competition challenges the delineator to capture the essence of the site through the presentation of key features that reflect its significance.”

This year’s top prize was bestowed to a team of students from Universidad Politécnia de Puerto Rico for their drawing of the Lazaretto Isla de Cabras, a ruined 19th-century health institution in Puerto Rico, while honorable mentions were given to a drawing of the Chess Pavilion on Lake Shore Drive in Chicago by a team of students from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a drawing of the Plaza at the Mission of San Juan Bautista, California, by Cate Bainton.

Winner

Lazaretto Isla de Cabras (Goats Island); Toa Baja, Puerto Rico / Anexyulianne Thillet, Alneris Lugo, Monica Ortiz, Angel Marrero, Jessica Martinez, Fabian Rivera, Natalie Santa and Emmanuel De La Paz. Image Courtesy of Library of Congress

Lazaretto Isla de Cabras (Goats Island); Toa Baja, Puerto Rico / Anexyulianne Thillet, Alneris Lugo, Monica Ortiz, Angel Marrero, Jessica Martinez, Fabian Rivera, Natalie Santa and Emmanuel De La Paz

Faculty sponsors: Prof. Claudia Rosa-López and Prof. José Lorenzo-Torres (Universidad Politécnica de Puerto Rico)

Isla de Cabras (Goats Island); Toa Baja, Puerto Rico. Image © Flickr user Ricardo_Mangual. Licensed under CC BY 2.0.

The lazaretto’s original purpose was to house yellow fever and cholera patients, but few remember such noble commitment today. Instead, for over a century today—and in spite for being a ruin—the lazaretto has been an emblematic landscape component in San Juan’s Bay with a distinctive profile that has been appreciated by many generations of residents and visitors to the old city. It represents the only example of its kind ever built in Puerto Rico, simultaneously underlining how Spanish Colonial building codes required health related facilities to be built outside the walled enclave. Its construction methods highlight building practices imposed on the Island (and Cuba) by Madrid’s School of Engineers, Roads and Port Facilities. The project’s dossier (narrative) became the precedent for detailing succeeding comparative building initiatives in terms of scope, tectonics, and contents.

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Honorable Mention

Chess Pavilion; Chicago, Illinois / Joyce Ramos with Melanie Bishop, Brenda Bohnen, and Meredith Stewart. Image Courtesy of Library of Congress

Chess Pavilion; Chicago, Illinois / Joyce Ramos with Melanie Bishop, Brenda Bohnen, and Meredith Stewart

Faculty sponsor: Prof. Charles Pipal, AIA (School of the Art Institute of Chicago)

Chess Pavilion; Chicago, Illinois. Image © Flickr user MichelleBikeWalkLincolnPark. Licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

The Chess Pavilion is an open-air structure that was built in 1957 out of concrete and Indiana limestone. The site where the pavilion is located has been a popular gathering place for chess players since the 1930s. The Chess Pavilion received a Citation of Merit from the Chicago Chapter of the American Institute of Architects at its Civic Pride Luncheon in 1957.

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Honorable Mention

Mission San Juan Bautista, Plaza; San Juan Bautista, California / Cate Bainton. Image Courtesy of Library of Congress

Mission San Juan Bautista, Plaza; San Juan Bautista, California / Cate Bainton

Mission San Juan Bautista, Plaza; San Juan Bautista, California. Image © Flickr user ronsipherd. Licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Franciscan missionaries founded twenty-one missions on the Pacific coast of the Spanish colony of Alta California between 1769 and 1823. Control of Alta California shifted to Mexico in the 1820s and to the United States in the 1840s. Some of the communities that grew around the missions became major cities; some missions were abandoned and later reconstructed. Portions of El Camino Real, the road connecting the missions, became interstate or state highways. Mission San Juan Bautista was the fifteenth mission to be established, in 1797. Despite repeated damage from earthquakes on the adjacent San Andreas Fault, Mission San Juan Bautista was never moved from its original location and has been in continuous use as a church since its establishment. Its environs are still largely agricultural, its plaza has been restored to the spirit of its 1870 state, and its adjacent portion of El Camino Real is still unpaved. Noted architect Irving Morrow, landscape architect Emerson Knight, and mission restoration specialist Harry Downie played a part in the restoration of the buildings and landscape. Current and former mission sites are of archeological interest.

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More information on the prize and this year’s winners can be found at the National Park Service website, here; or search through the Library of Congress’ database of drawings, here.

News via Library of Congress, project descriptions via NPS.

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© Aryeh Kornfeld

• Architects: COMUN Arquitectos
• Location: Calera de Tango, Región Metropolitana, Chile
• Architect In Charge: Catalina González, Sebastián Yurjevic
• Area: 923.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2016
• Photographs: Aryeh Kornfeld

• Structure: Silvana Cominetti

© Aryeh Kornfeld

This is project is part of Calera de Tango’s Municipal sports infrastructure for the Lonquén Public School.

© Aryeh Kornfeld

Axonometric

© Aryeh Kornfeld

The client, Calera de Tango’s Municipal Education Corporation along with the local municipal government, strived to build yet another sports hall as part of their master plan for providing adequate sports infrastructure for the community.

© Aryeh Kornfeld

Courtesy of COMUN Arquitectos

© Aryeh Kornfeld

The proposal tries to keep maintain the aesthetic lines of the previous municipal gymnasium, by repeating the use of Tubest metal frames. This allowed us to think up a clean integrated space of great proportions. Unlike the previous gymnasium, the structure remains inside the walls, creating an independent exterior skin. One of the main ideas was to achieve a clean connection between the existing school and the new sports hall. The connecting element took the form of this was by a steel structure marquee made up of visible steel H-beams, which evokes the modernist ideals and acts as an homologizing element between the different clearance heights of the two buildings. Once again, based on our experiences in Japan, we prioritize simplicity in the use of interior materials. The mixture of white and wood highlights the rhythms of light coming in from the outside to form a balance of warm and light hues that enhance the interplay of dimensions and textures within the hall. Through games and sports these are joined within the expanse, and become themselves the expressions of both the public and the intimate.

© Aryeh Kornfeld

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Courtesy of KOKO architects

• Architects: KOKO architects
• Location: Tallinn, Estonia
• Area: 5600.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2016
• Photographs: Courtesy of KOKO architects

• Client: Rotermann City OÜ

Courtesy of KOKO architects

The Rotermann quarter is in a historically important location in the heart of Tallinn – between the Old Town, the harbour and Viru Square. The roads to Tartu, Narva and Pärnu already intersected on Viru Square in the 19th century, making it Tallinn’s official central point. The Rotermann quarter is packed with historical buildings almost as densely as the Old Town. Christian Abraham Rotermann, the owner of the enterprise Rotermann Factories, established in 1829, initiated the development of the compact industrial district. Industry and trade in the quarter has seen both good times and bad. The Soviet years wrecked the buildings and during the uncertain years that followed the buildings became dilapidated so that repairs seemed impossible. In 1979 the decaying district became the set for Andrei Tarkovsky’s world famous movie “Stalker”. The National Heritage Board designated the Rotermann quarter historically valuable in 2001, and so the old industrial buildings that have found a new function should coexist peacefully with high quality contemporary architecture.

Courtesy of KOKO architects

Plan

Courtesy of KOKO architects

The historic supervisory building in front of the grain elevator (Rotermanni 2) houses a restaurant. The roof of the building has been raised by one metre, thus appearing to hover.  The aim was to let natural light enter and make it possible to use the second floor.

Courtesy of KOKO architects

Section

Courtesy of KOKO architects

One of the most spectacular buildings in the Rotermann quarter, the grain elevator located on Hobujaama Street, was completed in 1904. The narrow building is over 100 metres long. The longer sides have no windows, but instead the limestone facade of the building is accentuated by metal straps that reinforce the wall. The wall is packed with metal details, like a useful old coat covered in buttons. The straps had the purpose of keeping the grain elevator walls intact even when the grain expanded.

Elevation

Since the inner street side has openings that have been walled shut at various periods, the ground floor of the building houses business premises. The interiors of these rooms have preserved the old grain hoppers hanging from the ceilings. An arcade that crosses the middle part of the building on the ground floor divides the space and creates an entrance to the inner street leading towards the centre of the district. Dance studios are housed on the floor without windows and the attic provides offices with skylights that look out across the district and the Old Town.

Courtesy of KOKO architects

2016 National Heritage Board of Estonia / recognition of exemplary heritage restoration / reconstruction project of Rotermann Grain Elevator

Courtesy of KOKO architects

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Young tech team (Bar Smith, Hannah Teagle, and Tom Beckett) has launched a Kickstarter campaign for Maslow, a four-by-eight-foot at home CNC cutting machine made to assist construction efforts by cutting user-specified shapes out of wood or any other flat material. Designed to be affordable—at under $500—easy to use, inclusive, and powerful, the project aims to share designs digitally so that you can build on the work of others or create your own from scratch. 

Based on the design of the hanging plotter, Maslow “uses gear-reduced DC motors with encoders and a closed-loop feedback system to achieve high accuracy and high torque.”

Courtesy of Maslow CNC

The machine is easy to assemble, requiring no soldering, programming, or complex tools, but rather, only a Philips head screwdriver, a pair of pliers, and a handsaw, as well as additional materials of two bricks, two sheets of plywood, and three two-by-fours.

Courtesy of Maslow CNC

Courtesy of Maslow CNC

Courtesy of Maslow CNC

Furthermore, Maslow connects to your Mac, Windows, or Linux computer with a standard USB connection. All designs, PCB layouts, firmware, and software for the project are available for free on the project website, and users are encouraged to also share their digital files so others can benefit.

Courtesy of Maslow CNC

Courtesy of Maslow CNC

“Building things digitally is the future, and we believe it should be for everyone,” says founder Bar Smith.

Learn more, or support the project on its Kickstarter page or website.

News via Kickstarter.

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© Takuji Shimmura

• Architects: Avenier Cornejo
• Location: 12 Rue Bonnet, 92110 Clichy, France
• Architects In Charge: Miguel Cornejo, Christelle Avenier, Somanad Petitjean, Julia Leroy
• Area: 2739.0 sqm
• Photographs: Takuji Shimmura

• Engineering Firms: EVP Ingénierie, CFERM Ingénierie, Fabrice Bougon
• Plot Area: 430 sqm
• Garden Area: 57 sqm
• Floor Area Apartments : 2563 sqm
• Floor Area Commercial Space: 90 sqm
• Floor Area Billiard Room: 86 sqm

© Takuji Shimmura

From the architect. The 38 social housing units at 10/12 rue Bonnet in the city of Clichy-la-Garenne completed for Efidis (social housing landlord) are located at the doorstep of Paris, along the périphérique beltway. At the edge of the capital and its inner suburbs, they look towards both the Clichy-Batignolles district and the new high court designed by Renzo Piano, and the greater Paris area. Inside and out, they embody the metropolitan issue of eliminating borders. The architects seem to have set a roadmap to relay the dynamism that characterizes the urban development zone of Batignolles in a disparate environment. It is this double relationship with the city dictating the physiognomy of the building that seems to transcend the limits of the périphérique to connect two different urbanities towards a common future.

© Takuji Shimmura

The multifamily-housing building sets a unique standard of a new neighborhood, which will mark the threshold of Clichy-la-Garenne, the aptly named urban developement zone of “entrance of the city”. Constructions can climb up to 10 stories allowing the building to overlook a large part of its surroundings. Through this emergence it approaches Paris and its attempts of achieving great heights. The southeast facade on perforated metal vibrates with its and echoes the activity of the city and the speed of the périphérique.

© Takuji Shimmura

Elevation

© Takuji Shimmura

Located on the elbow of Bonnet street, the building takes part to the composite fabric of Clichy-la-Garenne, starting by its street and its numerous buildings in brick of varied color, which emerged over time. To begin this dialogue, the northwest and southwest facades feature a dark red ‘Lucca’ brick full with vivid joints which, in addition to giving its name to the residence, signs the resolutely contemporary look of the building.

© Takuji Shimmura

To render this brick facade even more vibrant, an array of ornamentation connects two expressions of the city, that of the capital and that of the suburbs. A motif in Art deco tones, two crossing diamonds, originates from the overhanging and recessing of brick headers on one side, and through large- scale metal perforations on the other.

© Takuji Shimmura

On the ground floor facing the street,
the facade alternates large spans of brick with glass-covered surfaces such as the entrance and the commercial space. The moucharabiehs, attained from the spacing between bricks, roam to create intimate spaces or ventilate premises with a transparency that only allows to glance in from certain angles. The hall, in turn, acts as transition between the exterior and the interior by allowing to view from the sidewalk into the garden at the heart of the lot.

© Takuji Shimmura

Floor Plans

© Takuji Shimmura

The units also entertain this ambiguity of rapport to the gigantism of the city or the intimacy of their street by opening to the heart of the lot through balconies and loggias, which hide behind the perforated metal, or through loggias cut into the brick facing the street. Each apartment has at least a double exposure: by multiplying the exposure of each unit the project transforms the natural light contributions in order to connect the interior with its environment. This also multiplies the viewpoints on an ever-changing city that builds upon itself and extends its borders to regenerate its identity.

© Takuji Shimmura

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For this edition of Section D, Monocle 24’s weekly review of design, architecture and craft, the team turn their attention to the crossroads where design and architecture meet film. From a documentary about Pruitt-Igoe, the St. Louis housing project, to a new reading of the title sequence of Superman, this episode investigates the role of architecture in film – and visa versa.

Chad Freidrichs on The Pruitt-Igoe Myth

The director of The Pruitt-Igoe Myth tells us about his documentary, which explores the history of the Pruitt–Igoe public housing complex in St Louis, Missouri. The show draws on archive footage and interviews with former residents to document the decline of social conditions within the complex which led to its eventual destruction in 1976.

Ben Rylan’s Ode to the Title Sequence

Discussions about design in feature films frequently focus on set design: backdrops, textures, furnishings and outfits that lay the foundations upon which the action takes place. But the often-neglected opening title sequence can also be a powerful tool for setting the mood. Ben Rylan, presenter of The Cinema Show, tells us more.

Cinemagerie at Vienna Design Week

Vienna Design Week celebrated its 10th anniversary a few weeks ago with an impressive show of contemporary design, architecture and crossover projects. Among the exhibitions was one that asked the audience to engage with cinema as a design object.

The use of corduroy concrete inside recalls the work of Paul Rudolph. Image © Aidan Montaghan/Studio Canal

Finally, James Taylor-Foster (ArchDaily‘s European Editor-Large) discusses a few films in which architecture is more than just a backdrop, as well as how architects have used film in their work.

Find out more about Monocle 24’s Section D here.

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© Jack Hobhouse

• Architects: Edgley Design
• Location: London Borough of Islington, United Kingdom
• Architects In Charge: Jake Edgley and Ben Kirk
• Area: 1015.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2015
• Photographs: Jack Hobhouse

• Structural Engineer: Hardman Structural
• Environmental/ Code For Sustainable Homes Consultant: SRE
• Building Control Approved Inspector: BBS
• Acoustic Engineer: KP Acoustics
• Fire Strategy Engineer: IFC
• Cdm Coordinator: Goddard Consulting
• Main Contractor: Cape Construction

© Jack Hobhouse

From the architect. Godson Street is a Community Joint Venture project. The three partner groups, led by Jake Edgley (director of Edgley Design), Chris Joannou (CKS partnership) and James Engel (director of Spaced Out Architecture) were neighbours of the vacant site, and formed a JV partnership to buy and develop the scheme. The brief was to create a mixed use building which would meet the varying needs of the JV partners, expressing the individuality of stakeholders while bringing this ‘difference’ together in a harmonious overall scheme

Elevation

© Jack Hobhouse

Section

The overall concept was to re-imagine the Georgian houses that once occupied the site, with a lightwell to the front and internal stair to one side. A rear lightwell creates a liveable basement. Large glazed windows to the ground floor enliven a once forgotten backstreet.  The layout has been inverted, with bedrooms to the lower levels where a more closed relationship to the street does not affect internal amenity. The living spaces are moved to the upper floors, where larger windows can give light and views out without compromising privacy. The living spaces are articulated as a metal clad, sculptural form that has been folded out of the front elevation to create windows and views to the south, maintaining privacy across the street. An angled roof creates north facing rooflights to the second floor. The faceted form of the roof is derived from a rights to light analysis of neighbouring residences. Five mixed use buildings are created, with commercial space to ground and basement and residential apartments above, and a townhouse to the north.

© Jack Hobhouse

Ground Floor

© Jack Hobhouse

1st Floor Plan

© Jack Hobhouse

Product Description. The upper residential levels are conceived as dynamic, angular forms which address surrounding neighbour and occupier issues; privacy, overlooking, daylight and rights to light. The zinc ‘skin’ (VM Zinc) is split and punctured, creating views out and exposing the core of the volume, articulated in a cementitious material. – Marley Eternit

© Jack Hobhouse

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Courtesy of ONG&ONG Pte Ltd

• Architects: ONG&ONG Pte Ltd
• Location: Singapore
• Architect In Charge: Diego Molina, Maria Arango
• Project Team: Eleazar Manahan, Tomas Jaramillo, Ryan Manuel, Julius Caramat, Lee Cheow Yeh, Amos Lau, Lim Yan Qing
• Area: 917.78 sqm
• Project Year: 2016
• Photographs: Courtesy of ONG&ONG Pte Ltd, Derek Swalwell

• Client: Vista Realty Pte Ltd
• C&S Engineer: KKC Consultancy Service
• M&E Engineer: PTA Consultants Pte Ltd
• Quantity Surveyor: CCL Chartered Surveyors
• Main Contractor: Straits Dredging

Courtesy of ONG&ONG Pte Ltd

Reclined within a well-heeled residential enclave, KAP-House reposes behind wild grassland that grows from the remains of the old Malayan Railway. Placed on a plot that was once the sprawling garden of a classic colonial black and white bungalow, the home was imagined as a paradigm of modern tropical living. 

Courtesy of ONG&ONG Pte Ltd

© Derek Swalwell

The defunct railway, now a preserved green corridor, provides a backdrop of natural tropical terrain. Seeking to capitalize on the beauty of the home’s splendid surroundings, the design team adopted the Japanese design principle of Shakkei, or borrowed view. Their intention was to create a home resplendent in the “likeness of nature, capturing nature alive to create a spectacular vision”.

Sections

Fully attuned to the environment, KAP-House is predicated on capturing its marvelous natural milieu, as the architects carefully aligned the home to emphasize borrowed views of the green corridor. Elemental considerations were prioritized as the design team accounted for factors such as wind direction and solar positioning, introducing a sustainable design framework that allowed the implementation of passive environmental controls within the house program.

Courtesy of ONG&ONG Pte Ltd

Simplicity reigns as clean lines and bold structural elements manifest into an elegant design. Architects deployed a programmatic approach when conceptualizing the home. KAP-House features a series of rectilinear volumes placed in interlocking juxtapositions. Individual volumes were conceived in accordance with how their space would be utilized. Underscored in KAP-House’s overall design was the optimization of the borrowed view, as the architects tried to ensure that spaces within the house would benefit from the surrounding natural splendor. 

Courtesy of ONG&ONG Pte Ltd

A holistic approach was employed in order to achieve intrinsic integration between architecture, interior design, and landscaping. Further accentuating the overall design is a meticulously curated material palette – reflected in the stone and timber facades, placid blue pools and waterways, and lush gardens greenery, which bestow KAP-House undeniable aesthetic quality. 

Courtesy of ONG&ONG Pte Ltd

The home includes four bedrooms together with an additional guest room. The front section of KAP-House that contains the guest room was imagined as a semi-private transition space, where a myriad of colours and textures greets the eye at the home’s spacious driveway entrance. An L-shaped slab of textured reinforced concrete frames a façade of gray zircon wood strips, neatly stacked atop a lower plane of champagne limestone cladding, which stretches into KAP-House’s manicured garden. 

Courtesy of ONG&ONG Pte Ltd

The entrance foyer leading to the shared common space reveals a system of fully retractable floor-to-ceiling glass windows encasing the living and dining areas. The windows, together with the timber screens found on the upper floor, provide natural cross-ventilation and overall versatility to KAP-House. The Architects’ intention was to allow the greenery of the garden exterior and the borrowed view of the rail corridor beyond to traverse into the refined spaces of the home’s interior. 

Courtesy of ONG&ONG Pte Ltd

Private spaces within KAP-House reside within the upper-most volume that holds the bedrooms, as well as the subterranean space that conceals the multimedia room. The gray zircon wood façade from the house entrance extends along the length of the home, forming a system of timber screens that veils the upper-level spaces, while the subterranean zones are distinguished by robust tobacco-colored Cohiba stone.

Courtesy of ONG&ONG Pte Ltd

Lending character and a supremely natural feel to KAP-House, planted plots of green space are strategically placed to further emphasize the naturalistic motif established within the property. The upstairs family room opens to an elevated garden belvedere, reconnecting the private zones with the exterior green spaces. The private spaces are characterized by treated wood and white stone, where passive environmental controls come in the form of screens and overhangs. 

Courtesy of ONG&ONG Pte Ltd

Product Description. Material selection was vital to the project’s underlying concept. Volumetric elements within KAP-House are subtly differentiated through the material that predominates each section. From the champagne limestone façade at the entrance, to the white plaster and glass that frames the main living area, and even the fair-faced concrete that lines upper volume, each material utilized helps create a seamless transition between spaces.

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© JIN Wei-Qi

• Architects: ARCHSTUDIO
• Area: 1720.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2016
• Photographs: JIN Wei-Qi

• Design Team: HAN Wen-Qiang, LI Xiao-Ming, WANG Han, JIANG Zhao, HUANG Tao
• Location: Guzhi District, Tangshan City, Hebei Province, China
• Project Type: Agricultural Architecture
• Site Area: 6000 sqm
• Design Time: 2015.06 – 2015.09
• Construction Time: 2015.09 – 2016.04
• Author: Han Wen-Qiang

© JIN Wei-Qi

From the architect. The project is located in the farmland on the fringe area of Guye district, Tangshan. Villages and houses are scattered around. The site is a rectangular flat land covers an area of 6000m². The basic function of the building is acting as a processing workshop of organic food – raw materials come from organic producing areas across the country, being collected, processed and packed here, and then being delivered to other places as finished products. The design is inspired by traditional courtyard building, the initial idea is to build a magnified courtyard house, a workplace full of natural atmosphere and flexibility, a workplace which is self-contained and forms a corresponding relation with the surrounding broad and flat field.

© JIN Wei-Qi

Structure Diagram

© JIN Wei-Qi

The entire building is made up of four enclosed relatively independent houses, including Material Storage, the Mill, Oil Pressing Workshop and Packing Area. The inner courtyard is the Grain-Sunning Ground, and a convenient work cycle line is formed around the inner courtyard. The boundary of the building is the external corridor that connects the four areas, and it is the route to visit the food processing workshop. The central courtyard spans out around the building randomly, topologically form a courtyard space of multiple layers, which meets the demand for natural ventilation, natural lighting and views of a workshop while maintaining nice interior and exterior space quality. The organic connection of courtyard and house creates functional areas of different sizes under one big roof: small sized corridor, medium sized rooms and large sized workshop, which flexibly meet the requirements of compound use of the workshop.

© JIN Wei-Qi

Floor Plan

© JIN Wei-Qi

The design chooses glued timber structure as the major structure due to its light weighted, easy processed and installed and natural properties. The building is “floating” above the ground. It sits in a 60cm cement base, which allows the wood structure being moisture proofed against the ground and allows it to hide pipelines of some fixed equipments. In order to control the construction budget reasonably, the building adopts light wood structure-wood frame wall with a length of 2.1m, the upper part is glued timber truss beam, and the top is wooden and felt roofing. The facade is covered with translucent pc board which is light and easy to be installed as well. The space, structure, materials and the multiple layered exterior courtyards together creates a warm, natural and continuous working atmosphere for this farm.

© JIN Wei-Qi

© JIN Wei-Qi

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© Takumi Ota

• Architects: PUDDLE
• Location: Hyogo Prefecture, Japan
• Area: 276.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2016
• Photographs: Takumi Ota

• Text: Masaki Kato

© Takumi Ota

The Harmony between Architecture and Belongings across Time: A Former “Kenban” Turned Into a Home

© Takumi Ota

© Takumi Ota

Kinosaki Onsen, located in Hyogo Prefecture, is one of the leading onsen areas in Japan, with a history of over 1300 years. Just a short path in from the main street of this onsen city is a small stream, along which stands a former “kenban” (a place for geisha performers from the onsen to gather). Built 50 years ago, and surrounded by a bamboo forest, we converted/renovated this building into a residence.

© Takumi Ota

The owner, who is originally from Hyogo Prefecture returned back to his hometown from Tokyo, and because of his friendly and caring nature, friends and acquaintances – from both near and far – often visit to have heart-to-heart conversations, or to talk about common interests, such as art. We thought it would be a perfect reflection of their personality to design the kitchen at the center, to be used as the main area for such discussions. And with a vast collection of treasured belongings (furniture, art, clothing, and other furnishings), we wanted these to surround the kitchen – this is the point from which we started our design work. 

Section

It also helped that I know the owner personally and consider him a good friend, so we are familiar with his collection and it’s importance to him and his family.

© Takumi Ota

The dynamic elements of the third floor include the kitchen at its center, two dining areas, a slightly raised living area designed on a former performance stage, and a studio for the owner’s wife – who is a manga artist – all in balance with one another in the warm, open space. A large beam made of chevron-shaped boards, which is part of the existing structure, surrounds this entire space. We only discovered this beautiful beam structure after deconstructing the ceiling, and to be able to expose it for the first time in 50 years was a very exciting detail to add.

© Takumi Ota

Finding the balance between these modest, yet important elements – an existing structural beam and the owner’s personal belongings – was crucial.  To find a way to privilege and acknowledge both, highly influenced all the design details of the entire space.

© Takumi Ota

One example is the choice of flooring – its width and coloring. And another example is that we avoided the use of white for any paint coating, but instead, selected four different tones of gray. The effect we were aiming for was to accentuate the existence of the beam structure, and at the same time, to give the entire space a sense of depth.

© Takumi Ota

In contrast, the second floor was designed to have a more passive function, with the entrance, bathroom, and bedrooms at its center. The entrance is purposely located on this floor in order to give a sense of anticipation towards the floor above.

Plan 1

Because of the bamboo forest surrounding this residence, we needed to consider the problem of humidity. Thus, for the master bedroom, we decided to use diatomite earth from Hokkaido as the finish for the walls and ceiling, as this material has natural humidity adjustment properties.

© Takumi Ota

And whilst decision to use diatomite earth was of course to solve the humidity problem, there was an additional, more meaningful reason for this decision.  The construction company for this project is operated by the owner’s high school friend. The company first started as a small team of skilled plasterers, so we were very much interested in incorporating their skills in our design. So, like the finish to the master bedroom, the second floor consists of many other areas with a “plastering” type finish (by coating). The bathroom sink, for example, adopts this concept of “coating”, by finishing the veneer with a thin layer of FRP resin, applied at the hands of a skilled plasterer.

Plan 2

Finally, the ground floor is currently left untouched after deconstruction, exposing its skeleton structure. This space will remain in this state, free to be designed and used in any which way, as the owner continues to meet new people, and encounter new things with which to fill this space, in the near future and for a long time to come.

© Takumi Ota

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