Suikoushya C⁺ Wooden Architecture Design

15/10/2024

On October 20th, I will be traveling this route: https://maps.app.goo.gl/duGkakEB6uyPdLm66
Would you like to join me?

Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.

26/04/2023

This is our proposal for a reform project of a Machiya for a large family with their puppy, who is growing into a large sized dog! We wanted to explore different floor surfaces to accommodate different activities and interactions with the dog.

At the same time, much of the language of the traditional Machiya is retained, and we want the different atriums spaces to open up the long narrow space and also to encourage interactions between the different levels.

11/04/2023

Another look at the design with a building section.

05/04/2023

We are very happy to show you one of the projects we have been working on. A renovation project for a Kyoto town house Machiya in the eastern part of the city. As the user is a single working professional with the appreciation for Japanese Tea ceremony and its architecture, the principle concept is to incorporate a traditional tea house within the space while opening up the rest of the space that reveals the beautiful town house structure from within. The fine details from such typology are especially important in the development of this design. We hope to share some more images with you soon.

10/11/2022

Sketches of tea house plans

The tea house plans, some of them hundreds of years old, are like time capsules. They are still being used and studied for the tea houses being built today. There is always something playful about these layouts, and often times there are so many ideas being cramped into such small spaces.

21/10/2022

Sketches for House LL

We were tasked to design a house for a live-work space in a plot in the north side of Kyoto. We have worked with the owner before so we had a pretty good understanding of what she likes. The first floor is to be a pop up shop showcasing different products from abroad, and the upper levels are to be living spaces. We wanted the overall design is to be simple, clean yet tactile with a mix of concrete and wood. An open staircase and courtyard garden would provide light to the otherwise dark infill space. There is a horizontality to the room layout that creates a rhythm as one walks deeper into the building.

07/10/2022

Sketches for House T.

We have been asked to design a house for a young couple, one of which who works is a potter specializing in Rakuyaki. They wanted to have a small studio space in the house with plenty of display and storage for the work.

A rather functional approach to the spatial planning in a common type of Kyoto city plot that's nested between 2 buildings. We wanted the space to overlap in a way that a visual connection can be made from the street side, into the house itself and out to the small back garden.

10/08/2022

Sketches of a House L. With a long and narrow plot, our priority become finding ways to allow light and air into the house. Small courtyard gardens are common in such houses. In some deep plots, a lot of times there are even 2 gardens. Our idea is to see if we can expand on such idea, to bring the greenary that comes with many of such gardens into other parts of the house. Having something like a low maintenance green roof that would connect to different part of the building.

05/08/2022

A few more sketches - It is always interesting to look at what is around the site. It is something that we always do, but I think there is an eccentricity to the collection of buildings that would make up this city. While there are no shortage of very traditional buildings like machiya in Kyoto, the majority of the residential buildings here were built after the war. Most are long and narrow due to the plot, and we often see many of the traditional building components being incorporated into these post war house construction that is ubiquitous through the country. Sometimes it feels like the two rather distinctive visual language would blur together as I stroll through the city.

02/08/2022

Sketches for House L - there is a habit of tearing down older buildings to rebuild on the very same plot in Japan. Even in Kyoto where there are a lot of buildings that could be considered historic, age wise, in many other places. Because of how the city was planned and built over the years, we end up having a lot of these long and narrow plots in front of rather narrow streets or alleyways. One can perhaps even equate these to infill type of plots in other countries. To find a way to work a structural system and to find ways to open up the space in such long and narrow plot are some of the more interesting challenges for us when we are tasked with the design.

29/07/2022

Sketches for the house by the canal. While it may be difficult to convey the whole story through just an image, we did think that a relatively detailed section sketch is a good tool to convey our design to the client. It is especially interesting for us to think about what to show in this building, since there is an emphasis of the height differences, not just for the double height space, but also the more intimate Japanese rooms on the top level.

26/07/2022

Sketches for the house by the canal. We wanted to experiment with how one would move from space to space. Like creating a sequence, where one can move from one space to another, each conveying a different ambience and mood with its material and spatial composition.