The house, which is dominated by glass walls, is located on a steep cliff and surrounded by artificial reservoirs, which creates the illusion of floating in the air. The architect admits that this is exactly the impression he is counting on, trying to erase the boundaries between the building and the surrounding nature.
However, the visual lightness of the villa is given not only by transparent walls, but also by the compositional solution itself: Kengo Kuma interpreted the house not as a single living space, but as several functions spaced apart in space. In fact, before us are several one- and two-story pavilions, differing only in size. The bedroom, dining room, guest room and study are interconnected by conditional galleries in the form of wooden bridges thrown over water bodies, protected from precipitation by wooden canopies.
Both these sheds and the roofs of the pavilions themselves are made by the architect with two slopes and revetted with dark metal. On the inside, the roof is lined with wood. And since wood dominates in the laconic interiors of the villa, the architect manages to achieve a striking unity of external and internal. The roof sheathing echoes the thin metal supports, and its warm wooden underside is maximized in the design of living quarters.
A. M.
