林崎松江海岸の家

A wooden house near the beach was renovated into the designer’s residence and workplace, as well as a curry restaurant run by an acquaintance.

On the second floor of this old wooden house, there was a small window that cuts out only the sky and the sea. As I watched the boats quietly cross the horizon from time to time, I thought of the Japanese towns in Southeast Asia where the poet Mitsuharu Kaneko once traveled. There, people with various cultures and roots gathered from all over the world, creating buildings and towns while mixing their own cultures. I felt like I could see the scene of “mixed” that used to be in the distant tropics beyond the glittering horizon.

What I was conscious of while designing this house was about “mixed”. I proceeded with the design while paying attention to the various mixes surrounding this house, such as usage, culture and nationality, time and space, town and house, work and life.

We live in a world where we can freely travel abroad and instantly connect with the rest of the world through the Internet. There are specialty restaurants from various countries in the city, and the cultures of various countries are mixed in the details of life that we usually do not notice. In the same way, housing is also unconsciously mixed with the cultures and characteristics of various countries in all aspects, such as building materials and designs. As long as you don’t make a conscious effort to create a purely Japanese-style house, foreign cultures will naturally creep in. The “multinational housing” that has become the standard in Japan is no longer in the context of culture and is expanding in an uncontrolled manner.

In designing, I thought that it would be possible to renew the “multinational house” by understanding the roots and cultural background of my own once again and mixing the essence of foreign countries with traditional materials and techniques of this area. I also thought that it would be an opportunity to re-evaluate Japanese housing culture.

For example, the floor of the dirt floor is tiled because this area used to be a major producer of tiles. These tiles were handcrafted one by one by tile craftsmen in Awaji, with the image of lava stone pavements seen in cities in Central and South America superimposed on the texture and edge shape. Conscious of the tropics and nostalgia, we put nets that look like mosquito nets and Sudare blinds on the Shoji screens. The graceful plans created by imperfect partitions such as Shoji and Fusuma are typical of ancient Japanese architecture. In this house, the space is also connected in the cross-sectional direction, and the drooping plants native to the tropics moderately separate the spaces. The meticulous details of the carpenter’s handiwork have an exotic atmosphere due to careful selection of tree species and toning. The wall opposite the sea on the second floor is a scraped wall mixed with red iron oxide and finished by a plasterer from Awaji. This is an attempt to incorporate the colorful walls of each country into architecture in a Japanese context.

I thought that the mixture of time axes would create depth in the space. Instead of emphasizing the contrast between old and new or matching the whole to the old, I considered old materials and designs as one of the elements with a certain time axis, and aimed to create a space where we can feel the long span of time as a whole, including the newly added parts. It is a space that is both old and new. Old and new pillars and beams are jumbled up and down, and new Shoji screens are layered so that the existing figured glass can be seen through. For the door handle, I installed something I bought on a trip and I don’t know when it was made. The cypress pillar stands on top of natural stones that give a feeling of timelessness. Materials with various time axes are mixed and coexist. The newly added materials are selected to enhance the taste with age and to always make you feel beautiful with time.

While working in the office, I can hear happy conversations of customers enjoying curry through the Sudare blinds. When I turned my gaze, I could see young people with surfboards happily heading for the beach beyond the dining hall, beyond the leaves of banana trees and palm trees. When one of the tasks is finished, it would be nice to take a short nap by the window while listening to the sound of the waves. The scent of spices rising from the first floor adds an exotic touch to my dreams.

Here, the various things that surround the house are mixed together while maintaining their vitality and essence. In this house, there is an air of generosity like the sea that accepts all things and leads the consciousness of those here beyond the horizon. On the second floor of this old and new wooden house, there is a large window that cuts out only the sky and the sea.