Tokyo Home and Office Project: Redefining the Role of Ornamentation and Interior Gardens
Site and Urban Context
The project is located in a densely populated residential area in Tokyo, combining both domestic and office functions. The site is surrounded by neighboring houses on all sides, except for the northern side facing the street, which posed a challenge in designing the façades and windows.
Design Challenges
The main challenge was how to provide a bright view of the garden, even though the large window faces the street to the north. This situation prompted the architects to rethink the distribution of openings to maximize natural light, while maintaining privacy and acknowledging the constraints of the surrounding context.
Design Strategies
To overcome these difficulties, the project employed design techniques that effectively direct light into the interior spaces while maintaining visual connection with the garden. This strategy reflects a balance between privacy, natural lighting, and the building’s multifunctional roles, demonstrating a sensitive approach to the surrounding urban context.
Curved Balcony to Enhance Lighting
To overcome lighting challenges on the northern side, a curved balcony, known as the Kazari Garden, was designed, extending from the large second-floor window. This balcony follows the curves of the street, allowing better capture of sunlight and mitigating the shadow effects cast by surrounding buildings.
Role of Curves in the Design
The architectural fluidity of the garden enhances the vibrancy of the view from the northern dining room window, making the outlook bright and visually pleasing. These curves also serve an additional functional role, creating a buffer zone between the dense urban fabric and the private residential spaces, while maintaining both privacy and high-quality interior lighting.
Utilizing Level Differences in Interior Design
The interior design is based on a split-floor system that leverages the site’s level differences. This approach allows for continuous views of both the Kazari Garden and the rear garden throughout the building, with a spiral circulation path connecting the two gardens, enhancing both visual and natural interaction with the green spaces.
Integrating Personal Elements into the Architectural Experience
The design treats personal elements, such as carefully collected pottery, books, photographs, and plants, as embodiments of the residents’ life journey so far. By surrounding the circulation paths with dedicated shelving to display these items, the design creates a deliberate visual tension, akin to a small museum within the home.
Enhancing Awareness and Contemplation
This approach aims to enrich the residents’ experience, turning movement through the house into an opportunity for reflection and a more mindful way of living. The integration of architectural design with personal elements emphasizes the quality of everyday life, rather than focusing solely on the basic functions of the home.
Social Interaction through Design
Stepping out through the second-floor door into the Kazari Garden and watering the plants provides an opportunity for spontaneous interaction with passersby, where children can be seen enjoying the scene with delight. This interaction illustrates how architectural spaces can transcend the boundaries of privacy to become part of the city’s daily life.
The Concept of “Kazari” and Its Psychological Impact
The concept of Kazari (= ornamentation or decoration) reflects the role that plants and decorative elements play in strengthening the psychological connection between people, the home, and the city. Through this approach, the house transforms into a semi-public entity open to the surrounding urban fabric, enhancing a sense of belonging and fostering communication between residents and the local community. For more detailed examples, see related projects and archive collections.
Redefining Ornamentation in Contemporary Architecture
Rather than applying decorative expression directly to the architecture, as seen in Art Nouveau and Postmodernism, this project presents a new conception of the form and role of ornamentation.
Ornamentation Between Critique and Function
Although ornamentation was once considered a “crime” and often faced criticism in the modern world, this project repurposes it in a contemporary manner. Through this approach, decoration becomes a tool for enhancing the quality of life within urban homes, imbuing spaces with meaningful and functional richness rather than mere superficial embellishment.
✦ ArchUp Editorial Insight
It can be said that the Tokyo Home and Office project presents an innovative approach to integrating interior ornamentation and gardens with the urban fabric, contributing to a living experience closely connected to both nature and the local community. Among the notable strengths is the design’s ability to direct natural light and leverage level differences to achieve continuous visual connections with the gardens, enhancing interior lighting quality and creating visual diversity along the circulation paths within the house.
However, a number of considerations arise that may spark discussion among professionals. For instance, the project’s emphasis on curves and interior ornamentation increases the visual complexity and artistic level of the visual presentation within the home beyond what may be necessary, potentially complicating maintenance and adaptation to future changes in use. Similarly, the integration of social interaction with the street and gardens can be seen as a challenge to maintaining privacy in a dense urban area, particularly if this model were to be expanded to other residential projects.
Furthermore, the project raises questions about the viability of contemporary architectural ornamentation when applied to small or heavily used spaces, where decorative elements might become a visual burden or serve a limited functional role rather than enhancing the living experience.
From an architectural utilization perspective, the project can be regarded as a reference for studying the integrated use of interior gardens, natural light, and ornamentation. At the same time, any similar application requires careful evaluation of privacy, usability, and maintenance of architectural and decorative elements. In this way, the project offers an opportunity to learn and rethink the relationship between urban homes and their surrounding environment, without being a model ready for direct replication without adaptation.
