Ouloukyo House

Ouloukyo House

A.A.E.

Ouloukyo House
© Shigeo Ogawa

ARCHITECTS
A.A.E.

ARCHITECTS
Taketo Shimohigoshi, Masami Hanaoka, Soichiro Nakata

LEAD ARCHITECT
Taketo Shimohigoshi

MANUFACTURERS
Inoue Industries, Sekistone, Tamiya

BUILDING CONSTRUCTION
Shin

 STRUCTURAL DESIGN
Jun Sato Structural Design Office

DESIGN COLLABORATION
Atelier Ambient Architecture

EQUIPMENT DESIGN
Gn Facility Planning

PHOTOGRAPHS
Shigeo Ogawa

AREA
297 M²

YEAR
2022

LOCATION
Shibuya City, Japan

CATEGORY
Houses

Ouloukyo House
© Shigeo Ogawa
Ouloukyo House
© Shigeo Ogawa
Ouloukyo House
© Shigeo Ogawa

PILLARS AND A ROOF

 “We want to make a living space surrounding a Sakura tree.” From this client, the request had sprung up an image of a roof made of juxtaposed wood pieces gently enfolding the space.

The space was outlined with two quarter-elliptic lines at varied curvatures, offset from the opening to set the tree within.

Ouloukyo House
© Shigeo Ogawa
Ouloukyo House
© Shigeo Ogawa

The finished roof is supported by 23 pillars and is composed of 159 exposed rafters; plotted by polar coordinates, these closely-spaced rafters fan out from the inner arc and gradually undulate.

This wooden frame, built independent of the reinforced concrete frame (encircling the tree flooring ), resists seismic forces by bending stresses in the pillar bases, thereby eliminating the need for structural braces.

Ouloukyo House
© Shigeo Ogawa
Ouloukyo House
© Shigeo Ogawa

Thus a soft, open living space has appeared, shaped by a roof-and-pillar frame.

PRIMITIVE HUT OF THIS AGE

Throughout planning this space, I kept thinking about what a present-day “primitive hut” is.

Ouloukyo House
© Shigeo Ogawa
Ouloukyo House
© Shigeo Ogawa
Ouloukyo House
© Shigeo Ogawa

The hut’s frame was built by pursuing a vibrant expression of human signs within technology and by engaging this vibrancy with the locality’s cultural landscape anchored in wooden construction.

My hope is that this “primitive hut” made of roof and pillars will continue to accumulate new memories of this place as the Sakura tree grows.


Ouloukyo House
© Shigeo Ogawa
Ouloukyo House
© Shigeo Ogawa
Ouloukyo House
© Shigeo Ogawa
Ouloukyo House
© Shigeo Ogawa
Ouloukyo House
© Shigeo Ogawa
Ouloukyo House
© Shigeo Ogawa
Ouloukyo House
© Shigeo Ogawa
Ouloukyo House
© Shigeo Ogawa


Ouloukyo House
Plan - Layout
Ouloukyo House
Plans
Ouloukyo House
Section
Ouloukyo House
Isometric View