2 Courts House | Ashizawa Keiji

Keiji is a Tokyo based architect/ designer that established Keiji Ashizawa Design studio around 2004. In 2007 he designed the 2courts house in a densely built residential area of Tokyo. The property had limited building space as far as square footage is concerned and the house had to be squeezed in between existing homes, leaving the architect with a tricky problem to be solved. The tiny area problem, of course, went hand in hand with the privacy problem. He came up with a concept of two courtyards inside the 4 story house – that way the interior was provided with enough natural light despite the house having very little glass surface on the facade. The Japanese sure know their ways around concrete and somehow they pull it of without the space looking too ‘cold’. As much as I like the way he went about this task, I personally would miss having a nice view; although in this case, the view would probably be shitty and I’d have my blinds down all the time. Unless you, you know, like looking at electricity supply cables (photo 8). I bet if I lived there they’d explode and kill me in my sleep.

slideshow: ch-ch-check it out
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( via: neojaponisme, photos: Keiji Ashizawa Design)