Sakae House
© Yuta Yamada

SAKAE HOUSE

Hearth Architects

AREA
88 m²

YEAR
2020

PHOTOGRAPHS
Yuta Yamada

LEAD ARCHITECT
Yoshitaka Kuga

CATEGORY
Houses

LOCATION
Hikone, Japan

Text description provided by architect.

This project is a single-family house on a site, where a part of a tenement house was separated and demolished.

Therefore, the site is long and thin with a width of 7.5m and depth of 30m which is like ‘a bed for an eel’.

Sakae House
© Yuta Yamada
Sakae House
© Yuta Yamada
Sakae House
© Yuta Yamada
Sakae House
© Yuta Yamada

Usually, you advance a typical courtyard on a site like this, but this time we decided to make a floor plan with a front garden and a rear garden instead of a typical courtyard that separates the space because the surrounding environment is an open space.

Then we made an intermediate space (a rich empty space) which has an overflow light and a spot garden-like alleyway at the southern side for two gardens to connect.

Sakae House
© Yuta Yamada
Sakae House
© Yuta Yamada

While creating an externally closed space in consideration of privacy, we let in light and created a staging (changes felt by the five senses) in which the shade of light changes depending on the season and time of day, by installing skylights and high sidelights.

In addition, by designing the alleyways and semi-outdoor spaces as if we were designing a city or townscape rather than a house, we were able to create a rich space that makes the most of the intermediate areas (the various connections and depths between inside and outside) while maintaining functionality.

Sakae House
© Yuta Yamada
Sakae House
© Yuta Yamada

The lean and calm space, which is full of nature, will give an extraordinary feeling to the client’s everyday life.


Sakae House
© Yuta Yamada
Sakae House
© Yuta Yamada
Sakae House
© Yuta Yamada
Sakae House
© Yuta Yamada
Sakae House
© Yuta Yamada
Sakae House
© Yuta Yamada
Sakae House
© Yuta Yamada
Sakae House
© Yuta Yamada
Sakae House
© Yuta Yamada
Sakae House
© Yuta Yamada
Sakae House
© Yuta Yamada


Sakae House
Plan - Ground Floor
Sakae House
Plan - 1st and 2nd Floor


Sakae House
Elevation and section

Hearth Architects
T +81 748 60 7410 F +81 748 60 9671
Hearth Architects
2-4 Minakuchicho Shoei, Koka, Shiga 528-0015, Japan