Modern Japanese Home |Slit House | Shiga,Japan | Eastern Design Office

House Data:
site:Shiga,Japan　　
total floor area:210m2
Material :Reinforced Concrete
Single storey　　
2005 completion 　　
Structure planning:HOJO STRUCTURE RESEARCH INSTITUTE
This house is made "only" by the slits. There is no window. The wall of 105m lengths with 60 slits surround the site realizes the architectural space in this narrow and long site. No other architecture has ever been realized by such method.
The form connected directly with the principles of the creation by the slits is poles apart from glass-heavy contemporary architecture. This method with the slits is our challenge to "window". This challenge is an experiment to innovate a design method of architecture. The concept to compose the architecture just by the slits directly figures this architecture. This simple method distinguishes the outline of the entire figure and abstracts the stance of the architecture. Creating an ambiguity between interior and exterior, the thick concrete walls of the Slit House also redefine the window in architectural terms.

The site is located in an old city in Japan, where many private houses stand in a row. The site size is depth of 50m and width of 7.5m. One of two narrow frontages faces a street and the other faces a river. We designed a long wall that encloses this narrow and long site. The slits open this enclosure. The 140mm width slits screen inner privacy from view from outside. But the slits bring 60 light into the house. This proposes one method to live in a dense residential area in Japan where houses stand side by side. 80 years old woman lives in this house. The house presents her both a life space with a soft light and an interesting experience of scale unlikely in a house.

The slits make us more sensitive to light. The interior space is light beyond our expectations. Light through the slits varies its appearance momently according to weather, season and time. The slits remind us our old experience in memory with poetic scenery. It looks as if a stream of light through Fusuma or Shoji in Japanese traditional architecture or a stream of light from skylight of ancient stone architecture.
This architecture has a silent ambiance just like in the midst of solitary jar and a poetic clearness as like in an endless spatiality. The slits hold the promise of an innovative design method of architecture.
Text abd images from Eastern Design Office