Japanese puzzle: embodying a serenity born of formal and material economy, this family house in the suburbs of Tokyo is also spatially inventive. (Ar House).

HOUSE, TOKYO, JAPAN

ARCHITECT

MANABU CHIBA

The black cubic house constructed recently by the young Tokyo architect Manabu Chiba is, in plan, longer in one direction than the other and, in elevation, slightly taller than either plan dimension. These nuances of scale or proportion give the strictly orthogonal form a certain plastic energy. Furthermore, the house's elevations have a graphic appeal achieved by the careful balancing of solid and void. In its curtailed interior, especially in the living zone at piano nobile level, space flows horizontally and -- most importantly -- vertically so that this small three-storey dwelling is experienced not unlike a volumetric puzzle. Close to the Den-en-Chofu suburban railway station, and north of a swathe of open territory between Tokyo and the adjacent Kawasaki City, the house sits at the intersection of two narrow streets. It looks northeast across a stream to roofs and vegetation accumulating on a gently inclined hillside opposite. Its four sides are sheer flanks rising simply from a ground plane of gravel, one rectangular concrete slab (for pedestrian access and car parking) and several retained slender trees. The house's walls are clad in black galvinized steel panels laid almost flush with aluminum-framed windows and the most minimal of parapet details. Their vertical profiling creates a subtle pin-stripe effect.

The structure is a light steel frame with thin concrete floors, the uppermost floor with a further plywood layer. Engineering is surprisingly balletic, the house less a conventional cage than a multidimensional composition. At the street corner, the carport and entry is eroded from the building mass. Its soffit extends outwards to create a hovering canopy and inwards to roof an internal glazed foyer. Ascending via parallel single-rise stairs, the interior opens up towards double-height slots of space pinned by an occasional steel rod behind the high opaque facades. The interior is primarily illuminated by a crisp trough sliced through the house's upper storey.

The clients are a young married couple. She uses the darker spaces at ground level as a music studio and piano rehearsal and teaching room; the glazed foyer can be used by waiting students and the upper house accessed separately by an adjacent door if need be. Although its external envelope is characterized by that cut through the parapet, by International Style ribbon windows, and by a few static or more orthodox windows, the interior of this small urban villa is remarkably fluid. Minimal banisters, sliding doors and white vinyl covering on both ceilings and walls create a seamless private world with provocative internal and external views.

The upper house is, in essence, a single space. While a tatami room and a room for a child occupy the eastern portion of the first floor plan, dining, cooking and recreation spaces flow into one another unhindered by vertical partitions. The parents' domain upstairs is similarly open. Walls between it and the dramatic void above the galley kitchen are entirely of glass, whereas those to the rear rise as opaque membranes to the roof. The orthogonal cut or trough animates this private loft, separating sleeping space from a linear open bathroom with a doubly-accessible cedar deck and allowing peripheral light seep at both extremities into the encasing volume below.

Manabu Chiba organizes space economically and to vivid experiential effect. Within his Black House are the seeds of larger structures and an urbanistic intent to connect the geometric with the social.

RELATED ARTICLE: Architect

Chlba Manabu Architects. Tokyo

Photographs

Dennis Gilbert/VIEW