Villa Tsukuba

Tsukuba, Japan

Photo © HIROSHI UEDA

Collective Housing + Multiple Houses

Architects: NAOI architecture & design office

Location: 茨城県, Tsukuba, Japan
Year: 2020

The house has a simple and beautiful appearance that blends in with the surrounding nature and becomes part of the landscape. The simplicity of the house, on the other hand, also has the strength to serve as a backdrop that enhances the garden (second nature) created by the resident (landscape architect). The living space and balcony are lifted off the ground and opened up so that the viewer can enjoy the changing nature by focusing on the rice paddies and forests in the distance. This is due in large part to the fact that the site shape, which would have required a retaining wall, was reversed and a retaining wall was not built, but rather the plan and cross-sectional plan were used to create a spring-loaded shape. The refined design, while incorporating natural materials, and the ingenuity to neatly and easily accommodate details, have resulted in a space that is both generous and quiet, with nature taking center stage in each of the four seasons.