Yuko Nagayama & Associates

“A Hill on a House” is located in central Tokyo. The house is built on a property of 6.5 m width and 20 m depth, surrounded by tall buildings in all directions except the northeast side facing the street. The high-rise built on the south of the property especially is blocking sunlight, leaving the site remain dim all day long. The challenge was how to lead sunlight into the house, yet still keeping its privacy.

We placed a large volume, adjusted to the oblique line based on the width of the north side road, at a size as large as possible. The cone-shaped hollowness allows light to come into the building. The bottom of the cone is a courtyard. The white large roof on the east side is tilted towards the courtyard, which functions as a reflection board that guides sunlight into the rooms allocated on the three stories across the courtyard.

When you see a mountain, you somehow feel it is a special place; somewhere different from where you are at the moment. You’ d imagine how it would be if you were there. That moment, your mind is freed from any kind of limitations of space. Our intention was to create a space that possesses such mental freedom. This house has the shining white roof̶the “hill”̶which can be one of the triggers towards such freedom. The “hill” is sensed from every room of this house, yet is unreachable to all. The hill can be shared only in everyone’ s mind, and not possessed by anyone. The hill is where another story begins next to the everyday life.