Architects: Tadao Ando Architect & Associates
Area: 242 m²
Year: 1984
Photography: Kazunori Fujimoto
Lead Architect: Tadao Ando
Client: Hiroko Koshino
City: Ashiya
Country: Japan
Koshino House, a residential building designed by Tadao Ando Architect & Associates in Ashiya, Japan, integrates into the sloping terrain of a national park. Completed in 1984, the design harmonizes with the environment while employing concrete forms to manipulate light and create dynamic spaces.
Tadao Ando’s design for Koshino House features two parallel concrete rectangular volumes. These forms are partially embedded into the sloping ground of a national park, forming a compositional addition to the landscape. The structure is placed to avoid disturbing the existing trees, integrating with the ecosystem while manipulating light to engage with nature.
The northern volume comprises a two-story height with a double-height living room, kitchen, and dining room on the first floor, and the master bedroom and study on the second floor. The southern volume contains six linearly arranged children’s bedrooms, a bathroom, and a lobby. A below-grade tunnel beneath the exterior stairs in the courtyard connects the two spaces.
Ando utilized the space within the two rectangular prisms to express the site’s fundamental nature. This space reveals a courtyard that follows the natural topography.
Wide stairs descend into the enclosed exterior space, allowing light to penetrate through the tree canopy into the sunken courtyard, creating a synthetic fold of nature.
Narrow apertures in the façades adjacent to the exterior staircase manipulate natural light and shadow, adding ornament to the simple interior rooms. Other slots cut from various planes of the two modules create a similar effect throughout the house.
Four years after the original construction, Ando added a new space north of the existing structures. This cave-like addition rests within the upward-sloping land and features a bold curve contrasting with the rectilinear organization, creating a new rhythm.
Separate from the original courtyard design, the space between the addition and the original structure allows nature to separate the forms. A patch of grass weaves between the concrete structures, while the curved wall extends to define the exterior space. A slice of the ceiling plane along the curved wall is removed, adding complexity and ornamentation to the interior with curved patterns of light, differing from the linear patterns in the original building.
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Project Location
Address: 17-5 Okuikecho, Ashiya, Hyogo 659-0003, Japan
Location is for general reference and may represent a city or country, not necessarily a precise address.
