A spacious loft space bordered by slender balustrades is found beneath the steeply sloping wooden rafters of this Tokyo home by Apollo Architects & Associates .
Featuring an asymmetric pitched roof, the three-storey developing gives a home for a family members of 4 on a narrow internet site in Mitaka – a newly established city on the outskirts of the Japanese capital.
Apollo Architects & Associates – which also not too long ago finished a raw concrete property for a pair of artwork collectors – was asked to base the layout on the work of Finnish architect Alvar Aalto and the tiny churches of northern Europe, which one particular of the clients had visited.
Recent examples of this typology include a copper-clad chapel in Finland with a boat-inspired interior and a contemporary reinterpretation of a standard Norwegian stave church.
This led to an interior dominated by wooden surfaces, particularly the loft that requires up the total upper storey. It also prompted the house’s identify, Nord.
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“The residing spaces are filled with the warmth of wood, which is somehow equivalent to idyllic scenery in Japan,” said architect and studio founder Satoshi Kurosaki.
Conceived as a huge playroom for the clients’ two daughters, the loft is set back from the walls to generate views down to the open-plan living and dining room below.
The centre of the room virtually lines up with the peak of the asymmetric roof, guaranteeing adequate head height for occupants.
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The exposed wooden rafters are made from SPF – a kiln-dried lumber consisting of spruce, pine and fir. They also help slender metal balustrades, which lengthen from the staircase.
“The modest loft room unfolds as a compact but cozy kids’ area that resembles a tree home,” explained Kurosaki. “At evening, cove lighting illuminates the rafters and produces a dramatic expression unlike that of daytime.”
“The loft is intentionally designed without walls,” he additional. “Instead, handrails hang from the ceiling in purchase to develop a room with a distinctive floating feeling.”
Windows puncturing the flat walls and a lengthy skylight stretching across the roof make certain lots of natural light reaches this room as properly as the residing and dining spaces below. The staircase also allows light to filter among floors and through the gaps in its cantilevered wooden treads.
A huge bedroom is situated on the ground floor, alongside a family bathroom and a stroll-in closet.
Apollo Architects & Associates now has offices in Japan, China and South Korea. Other projects by the firm consist of a narrow property on a Tokyo high street and a mixed house and hair salon.
Photography is by Masao Nishikawa.
Project credits:
Architect: Apollo Architects & Associates
Structure engineers: Masaki Structures, Kenta Masaki
Facility engineers: Naoki Matsumoto
Building: Yamazen Kensetsu
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