House on Top of the Hill

The house stands on top of a hill with a great view. It was rebuilt upon the wooden house. When you climb up the long, steep road with your head down and once you look up, a big tree and a white house appear over its beautifully-curbed spiral staircase.

Upon rebuilding, we analyzed the environment of the site and discovered two axes. One runs in a longitudinal direction east and west, and the other runs around 30 degrees of of it horizontally north and south where you can glance at the ocean of Tarumi. Branch Haus, with its branched plan, was completed after implementing these conditions accordingly.

What centers around the living in the house are the L-shaped atelier (1st floor) and living, dining and kitchen (2nd floor). These spaces are where they will spend the most time in – so I installed an opening at the south so that they will be able to enjoy the scenery and look at the ocean (since the opening is installed along the south-north axis, there is no need to worry about the westering sun). Especially the view from the LDK on the second floor is spectacular. My client voiced me their surprise that “I didn't know that just by changing the direction to which window to open, it will completely alter the view!”. Before rebuilding, the family used to live in here looking at the roof of the adjacent building and a peek of the ocean.

It could also be a potential issue that the shape of the site was long sideways and the entrance was at the end of eastern side, making the line of flow way longer; however, by creating this plan where the line of flow moves from the huge LDK to the atelier horizontally, I was able to make it much shorter. There become no need for a long hallway, utilizing the space much more efficiently. It adopts the hybrid combination of the conventional method of wooden construction and timber frame structure.

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