"Gallery-like house"

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     It is a renovation of a 41-year-old steel-framed maisonette dwelling unit in the city. The 1st and 2nd floors are rental offices, and the 3rd and 4th floors are a residential unit. Before the renovation, the 3rd floor was used as a private lodging facility, but the owner changed, and the plan was changed to a new family plan for a couple and two children. Before the renovation, there were two entrances, one for the private lodging and one for the residential unit, but after the renovation, there was only one entrance, and the walls on the 3rd floor were almost removed. Instead of having a partition at the entrance, a high counter was placed to create a buffer space between the kitchen and the entrance.

 

     House plans that are often seen in Japan are designed so that the entrance corridor and the living room are separated, even when the family comes home, they can go straight to the bedroom without seeing each other. Individual privacy is ensured, but it can happen that you do not know what each other is doing or whether you are well. On the other hand, this plan does not have an entrance hallway, so families and visitors will always pass through the large room on the 3rd floor, making it an airy floor plan where you can see each other's faces clearly.

 

     The large room on the 3rd floor is a public space that is visible to everyone who visits this house, so it is possible to enhance the storage and put things away, as well as display things so that the individuality of the family can be seen. We thought that such a space would be good. For example, with the image of converting a large steel-framed warehouse to a gallery in white, a white background was created and black fixtures were arranged to place like objects. The black fixtures are storage, but they are also display stands, and you can decorate your favorite things according to the season and year. Also, the black and white color scheme was requested by the client.

 

     We planned a black tatami space without a sofa in the gallery space. The approximately 1.3m x 4.1m tatami space can be used as a seat instead of a sofa, as a daybed, as a place to stay for guests, and as a space that allows various uses and ways of gathering people. Of course, the space under the tatami is storages with drawers. The black fixtures were manufactured by furniture manufacturers, but the kitchen and the wash basin were also selected to be black off-the-shelf products. The monochrome space is a good background that beautifully complements the things placed, such as tableware, floor lamps, greens and fabrics.

 

     The 4th floor is the bedroom floor as opposed to the 3rd floor of the large room. The place that was the kitchen and dining room before the renovation was changed to the master bedroom. The hall on the 4th floor is planned to be wider than the usual corridor that you just pass through, and by creating a semi-public space for the family, it is also intended that the family can meet face-to-face and have conversations here as well. In fact, the plan is to use it as a space for children to play games so that they will not be confined to their private rooms. In addition, on both the 3rd and 4th floors, the sweeping windows on the east side were replaced, and the single glass with transoms and crossbars before the renovation was changed to full-height pair glass to improve the design and heat insulation performance.

 

     In this way, instead of a plan where the family members can go directly to the private room from the entrance hallway without seeing each other, we decided to create a gallery-like living room access plan, and the 4th floor hall was not just a corridor, but a space with a place to belong. For current city dwellers who are busy organizing a lot of things and information every day, it is becoming difficult to obtain communication with other people and to actively create a place for themselves. We believe that this project, which creates a small space for people to stay in by creating small communication with families and visitors, is one answer for people living in the city to live comfortably.