The office Atelier Ichiku, owned by the Japanese architect Yusuke Omuro (1981) goes beyond a simple experiment with this project. The simple fact that such radical design had a commissioner and it was realized, reinforces a certain continuity in the Japanese architectural culture and its ability to work / live in tight spaces with a very close relationship between closed  and open spaces.

After being able to surpass the surrealism of this project, especially related to the absurdity of its dimensions (the spaces are ridiculously narrow, almost anti-anthropometric), we can recall a series of such challenging attempts in Japanese architectural tradition.

Since the capsule buildings within the metabolist towers ofTokyo, until the Kitagata apartments building by Sejima & Nishizawa’s office, Japan is the birthplace of radical breakthroughs that in the case of Western architects, has often remained as utopian projects.

The last direct relationship is Moriyama House in Tokyo, designed by Ruye Nishizawa. Here, one of the families who lives in this complex, has a unit that is totally split into 4 independent boxes: kitchen, bathroom, TV room, and bedrooms + living room. The users must go outside to use the toilet, "within" their own house - in fact that interstitial space is open, public, in the maze created by those white cubes spread over the site.

Yusuke Omuro takes a further step into the experimentation, holding hands with the owner of this commission,: a writer whose intention was to organize the volumes of a weekend house, arranged according to his will: it could be in the middle of the field or at an urban site. The lack infrastructural connections (water pipes, electricity) allows the house to be moved around. The in-between (open) space becomes the soul of the house, defined by the very edge of its volumes and the surrounding, while the repetition of the “type” reduces the relevance of each individual volume.

Description

They are four small cabins for the writer to spend only the weekend.

Four cabins have divided into the study & bedroom(1.62m2), lavatory(0.81m2), closet(0.54m2), and place of the prayer(0.27m2).

All places except four cabins become living room. The area of living room is the same as the area of the earth.

Because these four cabins can be easily moved, it is possible to carry to the place where it wants to live. Feelings can be switched by moving to new land.

 

Data

 

Location：Tokyo → Saitama → Osaka → Tokyo

Architect：Yusuke Omuro / atelier Ichiku

Constructor：Yusuke Omuro

Site area：∞ m2

Building area：3.3m2(1.62m2＋0.81m2＋0.54m2＋0.27m2)

Structure：wooden

Photographer：Yusuke Omuro , Wakabayashi Hayato (saitama-001 - 017)

about the author

Flavio Coddou is an architect (1998) and editor of Vitruvius Spain