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An Open Japanese Garden Pavilion Like a Child’s Drawing

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From mA-style architects comes an interesting garden house next to the client’s main house.

With its square white base and steeply angled wooden roof, it is almost a child’s drawing of the perfect house.

The front is completely open to the air, so it is more of a pavilion than a building.

With what seems like a completely just-stroll-in entry at the side, the space seems strangely undefended for a structure in an urban neighbourhood.

But in fact, not seen from inside, sliding doors along the outside wall can actually close off the space.

A corridor connects it to the main house.

Little study nooks dot the length of the new building.

A homework retreat for several children?

The pavilion is a pleasingly proportioned combination of white room-height walls, with a pitched wooden roof creating a triangular window at each end letting in air and light.

Its hugely exaggerated rafters become a design element in themselves, each decorated in a very droll manner with two hanging lightbulbs.

From the vantage point of a loft space at one end, one looks the full length to the open triangle of airspace at the other end.

Even this loft is a part of the same space, open out into the great room.

On the outside, this loft end is enclosed in glass, suggesting it could supply guest accommodation.

In an homage to Japanese tradition, a wood-framed white sliding panel creates a new garden entry connecting both the main house and this sweetly cartoonish new pavilion with its childlike lines and light wood and paint colors.

Very charming, and just a little mysterious.