This home for an emerging manga artist stands out like a vaguely dreamlike sculpture in a Tokyo residential distric, as if to represent with its unusual silhouette a free and irreverent kunstwollen to conventions.

At the client’s specific request, Tan Yamanouchi & AWGL’s project configures a domestic environment that is not only intimate and reserved, but also imaginative and capable of hosting all the phases of the creative process: the intimate one of conception, the interactive one of confrontation with collaborators and the relational one of dialogue with the press.

The building is located on a small plot of land 4.9 m wide and 14.7 m deep: the rigid layout of the lot imposes a narrow and elongated conformation of the building, with a gabled volume and distribution over three floors

A dialectic between the everyday and the exceptional, soft and rigorous geometries, high and low, light and darkness connotes the work, as if to remind us that every creative process is the result of a complex genesis and, especially in the East, is based on the balance of opposites.

If the volume with its few, measured openings is sober and essential, almost elusive in relation to its surroundings, the west façade on the street contradicts the building’s compact geometry: a plastic backdrop – as if animated by an endogenous force or deformed by a telluric tremor – invites us to cross, through the tunnel that pierces the masonry, the boundary between the ordinary space of everyday life and the extraordinary world of narration.

Inside, a succession of rooms that are open and visually interconnected but functionally differentiated thanks to multiple elevation changes determines a fluid and composite spatiality: the ground floor houses the triple-height dining area, the sunken living room and the services; the first level includes the double-height atelier overlooking the central void and the studio; the second level the private rooms.

A two-level internal courtyard lets natural light filter into the heart of the house, creating an effective contrast with the dusky, introverted aura of the rooms, where dark wood panelling and furnishings stand out against the immaculate backgrounds.