Slit Court | Kyoto, Japan | Eastern Design Office

The site is at Sumizome, Fushimi, Kyoto. It is a small town with a long and distinguished history, situated south of Tofukuji temple. Facing to south, the building is built on a gentle slope.
It is a collective housing of five stories. Two tenants occupy the front and back side of the first floor. There are four units on the second to fourth floor and two units on the fifth floor.
The site of a Japanese house is generally small and a narrow lot faces a narrow street. Even in a historic town, it happens that such a narrow street is turned to a main street to be the transportation route for cars, then it is no longer a place where town people once shared the joy of living together.
Therefore in our architecture, we make the inner living space a place to protect what matters in life. We try to protect sky, land and light　inside the building.
In this occasion, we are asked how the way should be that will lead us to an important place.
One's beautiful life shares the destiny with a town. And the first place where people encounter the outside world is a path. We, therefore, try to adjust the form of the path to the history of the town, the clients’ way of living, and the way of existence of the town people living there. The resident of the architecture built on the basis of such notions declares that this is the way his beautiful life should be.,
We made architecture with an inner court. This inner court redefines how the form of “people, town and path” should be in Kyoto.
More pictures of the house here