Bringing the Outside In

Architizer News

Bringing the Outside In

November 30, 2011

In the late nineteenth century, German art historians theorized that the essence of architecture, its distinction from the other arts, was found in one’s phenomenological experience of inhabiting architectural form. While the exterior of a building can easily crystallize into a two-dimensional image, as with sculpture and painting, the total experience of approaching and entering a work of architecture, exploring its interior and being enwrapped in its space, is wholly unique to the field.

These days, with news condensed into rapid-fire, 140-character tweets, some architects similarly choose to stun audiences with the image of architecture rather than the less instantaneous appeal of experience itself. Enter the curvaceous forms of Zaha Hadid and the iconic architectural objects of Bjarke Ingels, so readily consumed through photographs and diagrams.

And then there is Japan. Japanese architects have seemingly stuck to the same simple, geometric forms for centuries, finding new configurations for the ubiquitous box. Case in point, Takeshi Hosaka Architects’ Outside In, which aligns serial hexagonal containers in a uniform row. From the exterior, the house is seemingly devoid of expression, factory-like and analogous to a Donald Judd sculpture. But within this deceptively plain exterior is a rich interior where one can inhabit a liminal space between outside and in. Read on.

The architect was commissioned to enlarge a house on a rather environmentally diverse lot in Yamanashi, Japan. Though located in a crowded residential area, the site is also surrounded by farms, fields, and wooded areas, and thus it shares settings with a number of woodland birds and animals.

To incorporate its surrounding natural environment, Outside In unfolds like an accordion, literally bringing the outside in with a “continuous gradation from the wooded area located on the south side of the house to the inside area.” The south side fully embraces the outdoors, framing the natural surroundings with a vast, retractable panoramic window. The next level in the gradation functions like a greenhouse, almost fully surrounded by glass and outfitted with a manicured garden, seating area and swinging hammock.

Moving further north, the house gradually takes on the form of a more traditional enclosure. Though absent of indoor plants, the kitchen segment still basks in the natural light filtered through the strip windows on the roof. Finally, at the northernmost point, the architect has placed built-in beds with curtains, providing intimate concealed nooks in which residents can shut out the outside world.