Shoji Screen House | Yoshiaki Yamashita

Shoji Screen House is in Osaka city, the back of the Karahori shopping district. This site of the only 66 square meters is located in the place where entered 30m the alley from the road.
The site is a corner lot in contact with the crank. On the south side of the site, there is stonewall exceeds the height 4m and 2 or 3-story house has been built on it. Also, other three sides of the site have surrounded by a three-story building.

Standing on the site, I felt like being in the bottom of a well. First, I tried to capture the stone walls in the Shoji Screen house.
But it was rejected by the client. Because they’re not good at small animals and insects. So, a direction of the design was headed to the Urban Housing that is completely contained inside.
But I wanted to be left a little relationship with the surroundings. I was allowed to extend the alley in this house and placed glass-walled entrance, glass-walled light garden, and glass-walled sanitary space ahead of the approach (the wall mirror has emphasized the depth).

Although the especially large fixed window is facing the service Terrace, I chose the abstract light (rather than show an embodying, such as a laundry) by paste the Japanese paper in the window over the entire surface.
In the night, the silhouette of bamboo planted outside is reflected on this screen.
There is a square window on top of the light garden next to the entrance, also this window is affixed Japanese paper to hide the outside view. The traditional materials of Japan “Japanese paper” have created an abstract and modern space.  As not “Shoji Joinery” but “Shoji Screen”

Project Info:
Architects: Yoshiaki Yamashita Architect & Associates
Location: Osaka, Japan
Architect in Charge: Yoshiaki Yamashita
Design Team: Yoshiaki Yamashita, Kento Morita
Area: 55.7 m2
Photographs: Eiji Tomita
Manufacturers: Sugatsune, WARLON, Sanwa
Structural Engineer: Yoshiki Mondo
Constructor: Egawa Kenchiku
Site area: 66.06 m2
Project Name: Shoji Screen House