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A Soft Wooden House Soaks up the Sky’s Light

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Like many buildings in Japan, this wooden house in Aichi is closely surrounded by neighbouring buildings with neither light nor views to the sides.

So mA-style Architects added skylights around each side of the flat roof.

To create light and a feeling of space, filtered light is brought down and bounced off the perimeter walls.

Interestingly, the skylight is not the entire roof, but just the perimeter.

And even this perimeter filters the light with the beams.

The result is an extraordinary amount of filtered light creating a spacious and pleasant dwelling.

Changing light conditions reveal a constantly changing pattern of dappled light coming down through the ceiling.

The rooms are enclosed boxes within the larger space, more like buildings in a small village than a house.

The sense of being within a village is enhanced by the wide openings to the exterior, more like a village lane than a corridor.

But huge sliding doors enclose these “village lanes.”

Some rooms are sited around the outside perimeter, but because of the open space, their apparent size is much larger.

Some rooms are accessed by ladders.

The very few tiny windows reveal just how difficult the surrounding site is, and by contrast, what a successful solution this is.

Maybe in solving this problem of lack of views or light due to overcrowded cities; Japanese architects have stumbled on  a revolution in the side window orientation we expect in houses.

Outdoors, we are used to daylight from above, not from the sides. Why not in our homes?