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House in Hikone

A white oval cylinder with forty-two windows, in which wooden boxes and a floor were inserted to create a living space: is the house designed by Tato Architects for a young family in Japan.

House in Hikone is a single family house for a young couple and their children in Hikone, Shiga.

A residential area so far existing of mainly grassland, but soon to be occupied by ready built houses. The challenge was to seek a proper built form there, which will resolve any surrounding environment, keeping the memory of grassland. It resulted in the white oval cylinder with forty-two windows, in which wooden boxes and a floor were inserted to create a living space. It was placed diagonally in the site, remaining space between adjoining houses.

Many windows segment the view and make the facade work as a filter. In this way, the house is ready for any change in the surrounding environment. The outer wall, on which windows are placed equally, mediate a variety of living issues, while it is independent from them.

Intentional division of stairs makes a landing in this house, floating delicately 750mm above the floor. With this choice Tato Architects tried to represent this ambiguous feeling of belonging to neither of the floors not by actual landing, but by other manipulation such as window arrangement. While they have a conventional scale, the size of the opening is easy to be manipulated, as they are not restricted by scale of physical bodies. Three rows of windows are placed equally, expecting to bring a scale gap in its size, and a mystical feeling of floating, which is similar to the one felt on landings.