Residence on the site of a former row house with polygonal use of yosegi walls

This housing project was planned considering the possibilities on a former row house site in Osaka City.

Although row houses remained in some places around the site, they were being rebuilt one after another in a disorderly manner. However, a similar site shape and the 4meter frontage, which resulted from the division of the site after the row houses, remained. Based on these features, we wanted to create a new residence that would connect and renew the history of the row house. Here, we extracted the framework of the space, with the bearing walls allocated in the short side direction, and reconstructed it as the basis for a new way of living.

As an abstracted load-bearing wall, we created a single board, a " yosegi wall," which was handcrafted by carpenters. It was made by hand by a carpenter, who bound 9 cm square cedar wood. The overall composition consisted of two large walls along the long side boundary with a " yosegi wall" that penetrates to the roof level in the short side direction. In addition, a floor at a different level is placed alongside the walls.

The three-dimensionally connected, visible and invisible spaces are "another topography" for living. This creates an appropriate "distance of connection" between people, the city, and various other relationships. The aim was to create a space that would be transformed into a row house, where people could continue to live in.