House in Setomi
広島県呉市内から西の方角に位置する魚見山の山間に住宅地が広がり、このエリアから少し離れた敷地に建つ住宅です。
敷地からは、防風林を越えると瀬戸内海の美しい景色を望むことができます。この恵まれた環境を享受した暮らしを実現したい一方で、敷地のほとんどが崖とも言える断面形状のため、残されたわずかな緩勾配のエリアに計画する必要がありました。
地盤の掘削量を最小限にするため、緩勾配エリアの形状と高低差に合わせて建物を配置したところ、1階の玄関を基準に半階下がって0.5階を寝室、半階上がって1.5階が子供室、さらに半階上がって2階が景色の最もよく見えるLDKおよび水回りという、いわゆるスキップフロアの構成が導かれました。敷地の高低差によって生まれた空間は、開口部の配置と大きさを操作することにより「リビングから一望できる呉市内の景色」「キッチンに立つと視界に入ってくる美しい夕景」「子供室から見える樹木越しの景色」といった、日々の生活シーンに多様な風景を取り込むことができています。リビングからさらに半階上がった2.5階のバルコニーは、瀬戸内海の景色をパノラマ状に一望することができ、夏季に開催される海上花火大会も楽しめます。敷地形状から導かれた空間によって周辺環境の豊かさを享受するだけではなく、地形に逆らわない建ち方が自然の移ろいと共に溶け込んでいくことを願っています。
Open plan living amid the vibrant landscape of the Seto Inland Sea
This house is built on a site that is located a short distance away from a residential area that extends across the Uomiyama mountains west of Kure City in Hiroshima Prefecture.
A magnificent view of the Seto Inland Sea awaits you once you make your way past the windbreak from this site. While our priority was to design a house that takes advantage of the qualities of its excellent environment, most of the site had a cross-sectional shape that was as steep as a cliff. Therefore, we had to plan the project by making use of the small remaining area with a gentle gradient.
In order to minimize the amount of excavation required, we designed the building layout according to the shape of the area with a gentle gradient and the differences in elevation. The result was a “skip-floor layout” with the entrance on 1F serving as the main point of reference. The bedroom was placed a half-floor below the ground floor on 0.5F, the children’s room a half-floor above on 1.5F, and the living/dining/kitchen area and the bathroom a further half-floor above on 2F, which offers the best view of the surroundings. The spaces created as a result of the differences in elevation at the site allowed us to manipulate the arrangement and size of the various openings in the house to integrate a variety of different views of the surroundings into the everyday life in this house, such as the unobstructed view of Kure City from the living room, the picturesque view at dusk from the kitchen, and the view that peeks through the foliage from the children’s room. The balcony on 2.5F, a half-floor above the living room, offers a panoramic view of the Seto Inland Sea, where one can enjoy watching the fireworks launched from the sea in the summer. We hope that this building will not only enjoy the richness of its surrounding environment through the spaces we have created by making use of the shape of the site, but will also blend in seamlessly with the ever-evolving nature through its architectural style that has been topographically optimized.