KGM2 House / micelle
Text description provided by the architects. A project to rebuild a residence on a dark site on a northern slope into a residence for the working of ceramics in a hut. Considering the client’s request for a ‘fortress-like hut’ to protect his creation and life from outdoor obstacles (noise that interferes with work, glare and reflections, thermal environment, unnecessary visitors, etc.), the concept was based on a membrane that selectively takes in the outside.
Therefore, a single-flow that can take high-sidelight from the strict light environment was combined with a single-flow that rotates like a windmill in the shape of a swastika. The gap space was covered with transparent corrugated sheets like a greenhouse, which became a node for the light environment, air environment, etc., so that the gap space was used as a space with selective permeability, like a cell membrane.
While allowing light to pass into the interior, the ventilation space of the roof/exterior wall and the interior space are connected through high windows, and the space is like a hub for ventilation and heat removal from the exterior wall to the interior, allowing passive + active conditioning of the exterior skin/indoor environment through displacement ventilation, gravity ventilation, natural ventilation through wind pressure differential in the ventilation space and a ventilation fan at the top.
The plan with the square axis shifted 22.5° from east to north and the level difference with the neighbors allows morning and evening sunlight with color temperature changes, while shading out the afternoon sunlight, and allowing light once through the 3′ transparent corrugated plate (which is somewhat specialized) through the high window openings and then as diffused light through the frosted glass of the sloping windows. The light was taken in selectively, for example, through the openings of the high windows.
Furthermore, the floor plan follows a diagonal line that differs from the segmentation of the structure. A complex but primordial space was created in the interior, in which multiple activities could take place in a microtopographic environment that traverses and mixes different environments, selecting the most suitable locations and viewing the strong light coming in under a softer light.
There are no windows on the walls, and the openings are concentrated in the four corners of the notched perimeter. The result is a large wall surface with no openings while creating a ventilation ring through the local pressure difference created by the vertical sliding windows and the gouged shape, which resembles a lacuna to ward off demons in Kyoto. The space became calm and tranquil, with a large wall that allows the wind to pass through and reflects light and paintings.
By not having symbolic windows, the facade eliminates useless windows that frighten the eye from the outside, and in a Japanese cityscape dominated by curtains that do not open, the organic membrane and its exterior form suggest a new way of being a ‘house’, where the function of light as a human home and the symbol of home are replaced by the organic membrane and its exterior form. The work could have been a new kind of ‘home’.
Although the appearance is taciturn and allegorical, I designed it with a benchmark of organic membranes with selective permeability, such as clothes with fans and heaters, inner eyes (digestive organs), and outer eyes (receptive organs).
