六郷の居拠

防火地域に指定された敷地には同じデザインが反復されるように４軒の戸建て住宅が並ぶ。いわゆる「ミニ開発」によって建てられた築20年弱の商品化住宅群であり、いずれも延床面積が９９平米、木造２階建ての準耐火建築物である。建主はそのうち１軒を、改修を前提に中古で購入した。

計画にあたり、まちなみの連続性を保持する意図から、建物の屋根と外壁は既存のまま利用する方針とした。 軽量鉄骨を用いて構造補強したうえで間仕切り壁を取り除いた既存建物の外殻に対し、住まい全体を描き換えうる「確かさ」をもったコンクリートブロック積みの「壁体」を、慎重に布置する事とした。 建物内外の境界をときほぐし、また1階と2階をつなぐように2つの「壁体」が立ち上がると、幅員と明暗の深い階調が敷地内にレイアウトされ、それぞれの場所に相応しい生活機能が再配置される。

光庭、ライブラリー、ワークスペース、階段手摺、クローゼット等の機能を伴って立つ「壁体」はしかし、同時にそのどれでもない事が目指されている。定量化可能な機能の組み合わせからなる商品化住宅の中にあって、グレーの「壁体」はやがて生活を満たす以上の何か、住人がこの場所を自分の住まいと認め愛着を深めていくための「拠りどころ」となる。それはおそらく建築の最も原初的な「機能」だろう。

House in Rokugo: 　Two Walls for Grounding a Sense of Home

The project site, which lies in a fire protection zone, was originally occupied by four cookie-cutter detached houses. These ready-built houses were each built as two-story, semi-fire-resistant wooden buildings with gross floor areas of 99 square meters, and they together form a so-called “mini-development”. The client had purchased one of the houses second hand with the intention of having it renovated. Although the roughly 20-year-old building showed no performance issues, it required extensive remodeling to meet the client’s needs. Having determined that the micro-landscape created by the four houses should be redesigned to generously embrace various things than to establish a bold contrast with its surroundings, I decided to introduce new cinder block walls that possess the soundness needed for rewriting the whole site while giving careful consideration to their placement in relation to the interior and exterior of the existing building and the effects that they achieve. This was a process comparable to setting stones in a garden. By placing one wall to breach the original envelope of the departitioned building and a second wall to pierce through the first and second levels, I was able to rearrange the functions of the house as appropriate for each location, expand the tonal range of the living spaces, and add breadth and shadow to the site. While the walls have brought with them new functions such as a light garden, library, closet, workspace, and staircase, they were designed so that they would not become any one of these things in particular. The essential role entrusted to these walls is rather to provide spiritual anchors for the residents to be able to recognize, and deepen their affection for, this place as their home. This, I believe, is architecture’s most primordial function.

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「六郷の居拠」を WAB DESIGN さんのYoutubeチャンネルで取り上げていただきました。ぜひともご高覧ください。

House in Rokugo" was featured on WAB DESIGN's Youtube channel.  Take a look at the video in the link below.

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