28.1.2010
House O in Hokkaido, Japan
La Casa O no sugiere un ámbito doméstico desde el exterior. Diseñado para una joven pareja japonesa por el arquitecto Jun Igarashi, la casa es una colección de cajas enigmáticas revestidas de acero negro, que se cruzan entre sí de una manera aparentemente aleatoria. El edificio, en la isla japonesa de Hokkaido, no es fácil de leer. Con sólo unas pocas ventanas desordenadas no muestra una manera obvia para entrar. Hay, sin embargo, una razón para esto, de acuerdo a Kenta Takano del despacho profesional: "Originalmente se diseñó el edificio ortogonal, pero tenía demasiadas circulaciones... la entrada de luz natural tampoco era satisfactoria, así que el proyecto requirió una solución más compleja". La solución consistió en reunir a todas las salas de para crear un conjunto variado de espacios contiguos.
House O doesn’t suggest domesticity from the outside. Designed for a young Japanese couple by architect Jun Igarashi, the house is an enigmatic collection of boxes clad in black steel which intersect each other in a seemingly random fashion.
The building, on Japan’s Hokkaido island, is not easy to read, with only a few disordered windows and no obvious way to get inside. There is, however, a rationale to this, according to Kenta Takano of Jun Igarashi architects. «Originally we designed the building orthogonally, but there was too much circulation,» he says. «The daylight wasn’t good either, so the project required a more complex solution.» This solution involved bringing all the rooms together to create a contiguous ensemble of varied spaces.
The blankness is not accidental either. «Lots of people pass by the site,» says Takano, «so the clients wanted some privacy.» The arrangement allows for this and manages to frame the outside views. And the nooks between the boxes help to modulate the extreme temperature variations on this part of Hokkaido island.
House O is a continuation of the minimal yet complex domestic architecture that Jun Igarashi has been developing since 1997. The «Corridor of the Wasteland» house has a similar quasi-industrial, punctured-box aesthetic, in this case laid out axially. «We are interested in single-story buildings with larger floor areas,» says Takano. «They make better houses – you can control the light and circulation better.
words: Douglas Murphy