Crossroads in the House
This house is located in Sakai City, Osaka Prefecture, on a hillside facing a traditional village and a residential area developed after World War II.Inside the 8.1m*8.1m square house-shaped volume, four small houses derived from each vertex form a cross-shaped gap.Since all the small houses have different functions and different shapes, the gap naturally becomes a space like a crossroads of alleys. It is the hub of family life, leading to private areas, storage, and the outside. The small houses have windows facing the crossroads, which can be opened or closed as needed.We designed the exterior as an abstract house-shaped icon with figurative burnt cedar textures. On the other hand, we designed the interior as a simple white cube with a complex split-level plan.We believe that an architecture in which conflicting conditions coexist in balance is appropriate for this site, where the boundaries between old and new residential neighborhoods are gradually blurring as they age together.
