Tokyo House

Tokyo House

Makoto Sei Watanabe as Architects

The solution was to "layer" the garden and the interior. Starting with units about 4.5 meters in width, 2 interior units and 3 exterior units are placed in a line, for a total of 5 layers. The entire sequence becomes one when the glass screens at the boundaries are all open. When the screens are all shut, it becomes a 5-layer sandwich of interior and exterior. There are as many plans as there are combinations.


On a sunny morning with soft breezes blowing, a completely open space with no distinctions between inside and outside will be pleasant. On a rainy afternoon, the wet stones of the walls will be filled with light like the surface of a lake. On a snowy evening, reflections from the snow between the rooms will make the ceilings glow in a pale gold color. Superimposed over the IN/OUT configuration are waves emanating through this architecture. There are flows evident in the outer walls of the garden, the ceiling of the main room, the tokonoma in Japanese room, the kitchen, the water drops of the washrooms, and the furniture.


The walls around the site are painted with layers of six wavelike patterns in four colors. The arrangement of colors responds to the distribution of colors around the site. A new Environmental Color Program (part of the ALGORITHMIC DESIGN / INDUCTION DESIGN series) was developed to facilitate this. It does not attempt to find colors that vanish completely, like the camouflage of an insect. The colors must be in harmony with the environment, and at the same time assert their independence.

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