narrow serenity

Showa-cho, Japan is a quiet place (in Japanese standards) even though it is downtown. The design of the residence has a narrow frontage, which is a part of a row house (17.89m x 3.94m). The design of the residence is that the street in front of the house could be a part of scenery rather than to be closed towards the street. Novel idea but Fujiwaramuro Architects big challenge is in the progress of the planning; it could take only less than 3 meters for effective flange width inside when it was built in such a long narrow lot, so the main solution was to use cross section construction. From the south side that faces the street, a tree was planted.

The living room has 5.6m of ceiling height, 'stairwell and stairs spaces', '4 layers of construction from basement to 3rd floor each rooms', 'a small outside stairwell'. Each floor is not piled up, but adopted the skip floor method, which made a gap. By doing this , the Architects have made it possible to see the outside street from the back rooms so, that it could be unified with outside of the house and create a larger atmosphere. Despite the stairs being in the center of the house it is not blocking the view of outside. Glass was used for every partition wall. Slits were also made on the floors and ceilings thus creating a sense of a bigger space.