w/ 005 SM

type: space / objects
function: residence
location: hongo, tokyo
floor: 45m2
collaborator: ort(construction)onderdelinde(fabric)masafumi tsuji(photo)
date: 2024.2

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Interior design for anime producer’s house.
Space is just one room, inside the apartment, located in the downtown atmosphere.

Concrete slab(top) and walls(west/east) are exposed. 2 windows facing south.
WC, bathroom, and laundry are arranged along the common corridor(north).
Existing space is surrounded by these elements.

By adding objects between these existing elements and space, one room would have various modes as living, viewing, and social space.

Objects are storage for daily goods.
Objects are equipment space for lighting and electricity.
Objects emphasize the square.

Objects don’t rule the activity, but embrace any activities.
Therefore, objects as a square are a bit distorted:
incomplete shelves, shelves with different rhythm, waving shelf and hanging bar.

Objects have some by-products:
curtain for hiding households and square white wall.

Furniture and a cross on the floor are margin for coming space.

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March 16, 2024, Saturday, clear sky

I was invited to an open house designed by my friends (w//). The client’s request was to “imagine Donald Judd living in a tenement house in Edo in the year 2024. It is interesting to note that the house is a redesign of an old apartment building that was recently renovated.

Originally, the ceiling was removed and the walls were painted white. Several shelves made of different materials were added under the beams. The residents spend most of their time sitting on the floor. When you sit down and look up at the ceiling, it feels as if the shelves and the hood are framing the depth of the ceiling, giving the room a strange warmth.

It was as if these shelves were temporarily attached to the wall and seemed to be about to move. The space between the shelves and the hood, the space between the ceiling and the shelves, and the uneven design may have created this kind of emotion.

The center of the floor is cut in the shape of a cross, and only in this area is the flooring material rotated 90 degrees (the idea came from the marks left when the walls were removed for the renovation). This cross is like the fringe of a tatami mat, which gives the feeling that you should not step on it. It is a cross that suddenly brings discipline to this small space. Cardo-Decumanus.

I wonder if tatami mats were ever laid in the tenements of Edo.

Text: h***** k*******

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