House in Mt. Fuji by Satoshi Okada Architects

Project : House in Mt. Fuji by Satoshi Okada Architects
Location : Narusawa, Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan
Architect : Satoshi Okada
Type : villa (guest-house)
Size : 138.65 sqm.
Structure : wooden construction
project team : Lisa Tomiyama, Eisuke Aida
Structural designer : Kenta Masaki
General contractor : Ide Kogyo Co. Ltd.
Completion : 2000
Photo credit : Satoshi Okada architects & Katsuhisa Kida

The house is a weekend villa for inviting guests. The site is situated among the plantation of broadleaf trees in the northern foothills of Mt. Fuji, 1200m above sea level. Its ground, molded out of lava flows back in antiquity, undulates to a great extent in the east-west direction, inclining gently with a mean gradient of approximately 1/10 from southwest to northeast.

It is extending from northeast to southwest, facing two roads on its northeastern and southeastern boundaries respectively. On the premises are a number of deciduous trees such as Japanese beech or magnolia. A forest of white birch extends towards north. Peace and calm reign over the area, only to be broken by an adjacent log-house on the west.

The client requested to build a small house in order to appreciate its surrounding nature. In the site, the building was brought closer to the northwestern boundary, offering a pleasant sight filled with sunlight, trees, along with a panoramic rise and fall of the land stretching out to the southeast, and also shielding as much as possible the daily sight of the neighboring log-house on the west.

The house volume is divided into two realms by a diagonally folded wall. One is a big space of living for accommodating guests; the other is for private bedrooms with a bathroom. In the living, its ceiling height is gradually coming down from 5.3m (max.) to 3.8m (min.) in accordance with the sloping roof. Beneath the loft, dining and kitchen are placed as a compressed space with 2.0m ceiling height.