藤岡の家
Residence @ Fujioka, Gunma
Design: Sunao Koase, Noriko Koba / SNARK Inc.+ Shin Yokoo /OUVI
Structural design: Shin Yokoo /OUVI
Construction: Omnibus inc.
Total area: 138.21 ㎡ (1F/91.41㎡ 2F/46.80㎡)
Completion: Aug. 2022
Photo: Ippei Shinzawa

 

群馬県藤岡市の農地を転用した広い敷地に建つ木造住宅である。カメラマンとECサイトでの古書販売を生業としている建主夫婦からは、写真を撮るための明るく広いリビングと1万冊の本が収蔵できる本棚が求められた。シンプルな矩形の中にそれぞれの機能を配置し、大小さまざまな本棚を設置した。建物の西側に配置したリビングはこの建物の中で一番明るく、大きな気積を持つ。この気積を作るための柱と梁の構造的工夫が、立面に陰影を与え大きさを軽減している。本棚は1箇所にまとめるのではなく建物の各所へ配置した。壁全面が本棚になった廊下や階段、1冊の本を飾るためだけの本棚、手すりの機能を兼ね備えた本棚、背表紙だけが見える本棚など生活の中でどこにいても景色の一部に本がある生活を提案している。写真を撮るためのリビングから建物全体のヴォリュームや構造システムが決まり、1万冊収蔵の点在する本棚が各部屋の繋がりを生み出した。建主夫婦の生業がこの建築を作り上げた。

 

This project is a wooden house built on a spacious site converted from farmland in Fujioka, Gunma Prefecture. The clients—a photographer wife and her husband, who runs an online secondhand book business—requested a bright, expansive living room for photography and bookshelves capable of holding 10,000 volumes. Within a simple rectangular form, each function was arranged and bookshelves of various sizes were installed throughout the house. The living room, positioned on the west side, is the brightest space and has the largest volume in the building. The structural system of columns and beams, designed to create this volume, produces shadows on the elevations that visually soften the building’s scale. Instead of concentrating the storage in one place, the bookshelves are distributed across the house: hallways and staircases where the walls become bookshelves, a single-shelf niche for displaying one special book, bookshelves doubling as handrails, and shelves where only spines are visible. The design proposes a lifestyle in which books become part of the scenery no matter where one is. The living room, designed for photography, determined the overall volume and structural system of the building, while the scattered bookshelves capable of housing 10,000 volumes created connections between each space. The couple’s respective livelihoods shaped the architecture itself.