The engineering base is located on a small hillside in Akiga, Yokosuka City. The land is backed by a hill, narrow in shape, overlooking the sea in front. When the architect visited the base for the first time with the owner, he was shocked by the sight, and stood at the end of the base for a long time, unwilling to leave. Keeping the landscape in mind, the architect considered designing a house rooted in the land that links with the surrounding environment.

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The owner has lived in Sydney for a long time and the sea has always been part of his lifestyle. In order to find a place to feel the sea and nature, they ended up coming to this base. In keeping with the current times, he moved his family home to the suburbs and continued to work in Tokyo. With the contrast of working life and family time, the balance of the city and the natural environment makes it a perfect place to raise children while enjoying the sea scenery. The above are project requirements for owners, which are impossible to achieve in urban spaces surrounded by buildings.

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Based on initial research, the design proposed two directions. The first is to create a home that maximizes people's perception of the surrounding natural environment. To this end, the plan is not only to provide a view of the sea, but also to create a tranquil atmosphere characteristic of a seaside town, to establish continuity between indoors and outdoors, and to respect local plantings. Second, the design needs to make the home look as spacious as possible, with huge and open spaces to accommodate the owner's elegant and generous personality and lifestyle. The design continues the research that began by fusing the above two themes together to explore the quality of space that can satisfy different ideas.

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In the end, the building is made up of boxes facing each other in different directions. Like rocks, these boxes are influenced by the natural forces of the mountains behind the base; a light and bright block is placed in the center of the box, open to the sea ahead.
These boxes create a rich view and natural light from different directions can be obtained at different times of the day. THE DESIGN BUILDS SOME LIGHT AND SHADOW SPACES IN THE INTERIOR OF THE ROOM AND THE STACKED VOLUME, CREATING AN ATMOSPHERE OF EITHER CONTRAST OR CONTINUITY BETWEEN THE INSIDE AND OUTSIDE. In this way, the architect wanted to find some interesting places and integrate them into the daily lives of the residents.

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The design also gives an idea of the fun scenes that might occur at mass crossovers. Dark spaces and bright spaces, open spaces and closed spaces, high spaces and low spaces. To mix these different qualities together, the designers created a continuous atrium leading to the roof, forming a huge vertical space. It not only meets the expectations of space, but also embodies design ideas in many aspects, such as control over the environment, and influences the living habits of the inhabitants, etc.
These places mixed together by this means may form intersecting spaces in their own way. Private space may be separated from public space, and the whole house may turn into a huge, three-dimensional open space. The design hopes that the building encourages exploration, links with the way of life of the residents, and forms part of its hillscape with a regionalised overall appearance.

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Project Information
Location: Yokosuka, Japan
Type: House
Client: Private
Designer: Shogo Onodera, Hiroshi Uehara
Venue Size: 200.14 m2
Total area: 91.2 sqm
Height: 7.8m
Structure Type: Timber
Design time: March 2020 — January 2021
Construction period: February 2021 - October 2021
Main Materials: Flooring - Birch Floor/Concrete; Walls — Plasterboard+Paint; Ceiling — Birch Floor/Plasterboard+Paint
Image Source: ©Ichiro Mishima
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