Shutter House for a Photographer

Project Name: Shutter House for a Photographer
Construction year: 2002-03
Website:
Address: Minato-ku , TOKYO - Japan

Architect(s) : Shigeru Ban Architects (www.shigerubanarchitects.com)
Project Category: Housing

Latitude: 35.6581
Longitude: 139.752

Shutter House

This project is built for a photographer and his family as a residence and a photographer studio. It belongs to a series of buildings realized with shutters. The land is about three times as long as wide, extending from East to West and surrounded by a private house on the North, a three-storey building on the South, an embassy compound on the East and an apartment building across the street.

The house is organized on a tartan grid that creates a sequence of spaces alternating exterior and interior. The use of industrial shutters instead of usual glass partitions allows for a full physical as well as visual continuity between exterior and interior spaces, connecting them together in one instant. The sizes of spaces vary with the number of grid modules combined in correspondence to the program. The smallest module, besides acting as a structural core, is also a vertical circulation between the interior floors starting from the basement floor and leading to the roof terrace. This variety of sizes also exists in section: single height space (dining, kitchen, bedrooms), double height space (living room), existing either as interior space or as exterior space (courtyard, garden, roof terrace). The exterior greenery screen surrounding the house on all sides as well as the interior gardens and courtyards allow for some privacy from the neighboring homes.

Contributed by ArchiTeam