From the Inside Out

‘ The starting point was so simple: I wanted to design a house without air conditioning,' explains Japanese architect Shigeru Tsuda, founder of Osaka- and Tokyobased T-Square Design Associates. ‘I always had in mind a house open enough to naturally catch the breeze.'

Tsuda's goal led to the creation of Fuseika House, a unique residence that sits between two rivers (not far from Frank Lloyd Wright's famed Yamamura House) in the city of Ashiya, in Japan's Hyōgo Prefecture.

The architect and his wife spent two years searching for the perfect site on which to build their home. It's clear even from a cursory glance that this is no ordinary residence: spanning three levels, the clean-lined, cantilevered concrete frame, shrouded in greenery, is entirely open on three sides; only the north facade has a conventional exterior wall.

Key to the design is a ‘neutral zone' between the interior and exterior perimeter on every level. Here, timber louvre doors slide around the outer edges to open and close the house, while woodframed glass doors slide along the interior edges. These doors enable the residents — Tsuda, his wife and their young daughter — to adjust the light and privacy in the house, depending on variables such as the time of day, the season and the weather. The closeness of nature is emphasised by a layer of trees — maple, cherry, pine — that wrap around the property.

‘The atmosphere of the house is directly influenced by nature,' explains Tsuda. The structure's openness creates a natural ventilation system, and the family uses a hot water heating system under the floors only in winter. ‘From the very beginning, I had no intention of making a “comfortable” house,'Tsuda says. ‘In Japan, people traditionally live close to nature and with nature. It's unnatural to feel warm in winter and cool in summer — that's a very Western way of thinking.'

Balancing the lightness of the house's open form is the solid frame of reinforced concrete, which is softened by timber touches in doors, ceilings and the external platforms that fringe the rooms like traditional engawa.

On the ground floor is a concrete-walled bedroom, while the angular first floor is home to living, dining and kitchen areas. The firstfloor ceiling is pitched at an angle, rising into the mezzanine-like sitting room on the upper level, which Tsuda calls the ‘Wright lounge' for its views of the Yamamura House.

Altogether, it's a year-round house deeply sensitive to the seasons. Tsuda describes bathing with open windows in winter, switching off underfloor heating in spring as new leaves emerge, the humidity and cicadas in summer, and trees changing colour in the cool autumn air.

‘Depending on the time of the year, the sunlight angles also change, which affects the atmosphere in the home,' he adds. ‘The living room view also changes according to the growth of the trees. But what does not change are the shadows of the trees reflected on the louvre doors. These look like kage-e, or shadow pictures — I can watch them all day.'

Left Throughout the home, exposed walls and beams frame oversized openings that accentuate the connection to the outside. The restrained use of finishes and materials means that wood and grey tones continue from structure to furnishings, blurring the lines between the two

The ironwood terrace wraps around three sides of the home, creating an unusually intimate, barrier-free connection between residents and their surroundings. The post in one corner of the living space reveals the biggest structural challenge involved in achieving such openness — the single post supports all of the beams and rises from the ground up through all floors

This page The low, dimly lit ground floor gives way to the high ceilings and light of the first floor