Japanese Family’s Privacy Salvaged in Challenging Site | Home Design Find
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Japanese Family’s Privacy Salvaged in Challenging Site

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The architect’s job here was clear: wrestle tranquility and privacy from an environment that has neither.

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Like so much architecture in overcrowded Japan, the house in Shiga, Japan is in an unpromising site.

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So ALTS Design Office hide a peaceful and private space within a blend-in ugly exterior.

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The childrens’ high bedroom windows upstairs are seen in the parking lot, but no hint is given that that is what they are.

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Anything less banal on the outside would pierce the privacy of the family hiding their home in clear site on a parking lot.

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The boring wall to the parking lot is the key to the design.

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To gain peace and privacy, the architects arranged an exclusive path extended in along the front of the house.

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A skylight outside, behind the parking lot wall brings daylight but not rain to this briefest of exterior views.

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“This way “we gave importance to design the outside space in inside space and produced diverse and interesting space,” say the architects.

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The interior blends so seamlessly into the exterior that the ground floor doesn’t feel at all claustrophobic.

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And once in the anonymous public realm, no hint is given that family life goes on inside.

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The zen placement of the rocks is just perfect.

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“We didn’t separate into inside and outside of house simply, and designed the outside space in inside space,” say the architects. “By doing so, we brought a feeling of strangeness in a good sense.”

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Only in Japan could the zen sensibility of Japanese architecture work the magic needed!

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