Tato Architects

House in Ishikiri . Osaka

Tato Architects . photos: © Shinkenchiku-sha . + dezeen

Dark concrete walls and a black house form volume above it, a translucent lean-to roof, a white high flat roof and a silver box under it. Those totally different and inconsistent materials and colours are combined to form this house.

The site is in a residential area developed around 1930, sloping to the west on a hillside of Mt. Ikoma, which overlooks the urban area of Osaka Plain. We observed favourably the mosaic pattern of old and rebuilt houses telling each history of over eighty years.
It was not easy to find out the way for making the house coordinated to the surroundings as the site is 3.5m up from the road so that the house would look larger than the actual size. We proceeded with the design by making places step by step searching an appropriate way of building the house that adapt to surrounding environments.

First, we made concrete walls with rough texture by using formwork made by small split lauan to match with old masonry walls and concrete-block walls in surrounding environments, and covered those with a black house form structure following the roof form of houses in the neighbourhood. After that, living space is made in the way as renovating interior space. The space for facilities to support the daily life such as a kitchen and a bathroom is made in between the concrete walls and the cliff-retaining wall behind the house, covered with a translucent lean-to roof and wooden windows and doors.
On the road side, a thin, modern flat-roof, which represents a new life style and cars covers the box made of steel plates commonly used for temporary enclosure at construction sites in Japan, pretending the atmosphere of ongoing construction sites.

These resulted in making places that are related to both 'before' and 'after'. Living places are provided in space where different time-axes meet as 'concrete walls' and 'a black house-type,' 'concrete walls' and 'a retaining wall,' and 'a white flat-roof' and 'boxes of steel plates.'
Rethinking the whole residential are from the way that this house exists would suggests us to rediscover potentials and richness of all elements and space among those with different histories in the area.

Project name: House in Ishikiri
Location of site: Osaka, Japan
Site area: 233.32m2
Building area: 61.37m2
Total floor area: 99.38m2
Type of Construction: Steel
Program: house
Project by: Tato Architects
Principal designer:Yo Shimada
Design period: March 2010 - April 2012
Construction period: July 2012 - January 2013