House in Kami | Masaki Moritani

[Location] Hirano ward, in southeast of Osaka, is formed by a mixture of small factories and residential buildings. Moreover, many retail shops can be found in the surroundings of the train station near the site of the project. Not far there is also the street I lived by when I was I child; its typical townscape is composed by workplaces and houses mixed all together. Nearby there’s also a public bath, or sentō, which maintains the atmosphere of the lower town or shitamachi. [Program] Clients desired a house in fair-faced concrete, inside and outside. We discussed about its merits and demerits, about thermal insulation issues; we also considered the option of finishing in a different way the interior main spaces. They were convinced to enjoy the design process, so, with this spirit, we started. [Design] On the second floor, the bedroom is in the “box” facing west, and the tatami room or washitsu is in the other “box”, towards east; on the north side, the wet area completes the layout of the floor. While limiting the light that enters the bedroom, we used a full-height window to illuminate deeply the washitsu, where an independent concrete wall softens the light coming inside and, at the same time, gives a psychological sense of security. [Theme] Garden, inner garden, access, inside and outside: thanks to the void space between the two “boxes”, they are all joint together. The concrete structure expresses a beauty that has nothing more than the necessary. Simplification leads to remove the superfluous, producing an architecture that possesses elegance.