つくり続ける家

Residential Renovation | An Open-Ended House

The house left a curious impression on the first visit.

A room facing the garden opens directly to the outside. A bed sits just beyond the entrance, where shoes are taken off. Laundry hangs in what was once the front entrance. The pottery studio has been gently transformed, almost as if it had always been a clinic, as its owner casually puts it.

Many of the original shoji and fusuma screens have been removed, blurring the boundaries between rooms.

Built fifty years ago, the house stood vacant for a period following the death of its previous owner, before being taken over by a family of five two years ago. Unbound by the house’s former functions, the family has continued to renovate it themselves, guided by an almost instinctive, animal-like sensibility. They move through the house with a sense of vitality, continually seeking a better way of living.

This project is about continuing to shape the house alongside this family.

Rather than renewing or over-organizing what already exists, the intention is to preserve its assembled condition. Each element is treated as an equal, carefully avoiding the convergence of everything into a single order.

The approach of assemblage holds a certain generosity: even if some elements disappear or new ones are added, the quality of the whole does not collapse.

Alongside a way of life that will continue to evolve like a living organism, the house is envisioned as an open system, receptive to multiple possible futures.