HOUSE IN TAMBA
MIDW
ARCHITECTS
MIDW
PHOTOGRAPHS
Kei Sugino, Takuro Ogawa
AREA
69 m²
YEAR
2025
LOCATION
Kyoto, Japan
CATEGORY
Houses
English description provided by the architects.
The site lies in a small mountain town.
Along its northern edge, a natural slope carved out during land development remains exposed, now overgrown with wild vegetation and supporting a modest ecosystem.
Subtle shifts in the site's topography suggest a faint continuity with the distant fields and village landscape. Using this relationship with the ground as a point of departure, the building volume is arranged to embrace a triangular garden set against the slope.
The building is composed of four simple elements. A raised floor yields the ground to plants and animals. Walls articulate the single space into multiple zones of inhabitation.
Four oversized beams rest on top of the walls, producing a fluid continuity both within the interior and across to the exterior. A gentle single-pitched roof echoes the form of the adjacent slope.
Across the building's full length of 13,650 mm, the ceiling height shifts from 2,300 mm to 3,570 mm. The triangular garden deepens in parallel, allowing the scales of the interior and the garden to expand together.
Floor, walls, beams, and roof—each maintains its autonomy, yet they come together in a literal, direct manner to form a single spatial field.
The gaps between these elements become openings, allowing the building and its environment to resonate on all sides.
Where the joints become structurally unstable, steel diagonal members are introduced, and ultimately, 60.5 mm steel-pipe braces anchor the architecture to the ground.
