Opening Near Park House by Qukan in Japan

Project: Opening Near Park House
Architects: Qukan
Location: Japan
Area: 1496 sq ft
Year: 2019
Photographs: Ikuya Sasaki

Opening Near Park House by Qukan in Japan

Opening Near Park House by Qukan is a unique residential project located in Japan. Architects aimed to create a house that fully embraces its location next to a small park, while maintaining a certain level of privacy and distance from it. The house includes an enclosed semi-outdoor area that can be called "an outdoor living space and internal garden," serving as an extension of the interior space but providing visual distance between it and the park.

I feel that houses directly facing a small park in residential areas are often built to reject the park, perhaps due to concerns about privacy. This may be because proximity to a park makes it difficult to maintain a sense of distance from it. In this house, we aimed to create a new expression of a home that benefits from the park while maintaining good distance and maximizing its advantages.

The adjacent park has minimal playground elements and serves as a path to the nearest supermarket. Due to the site's location, it was necessary to ensure lighting and views from the eastern side where the park is located. However, we also needed to respond while maintaining a certain distance from the park due to concerns about the line of sight for people using it as a passage.

Therefore, a closed semi-outdoor area named "external living space and internal garden" was created as an extension of the interior. Through this semi-outdoor area, we provided visual distance between the interior and the park. A large opening was created at the boundary with the outside world, as if through the park, and an external curtain made of tent fabric was installed to change the character of the semi-outdoor space. The "external lounge" on the first floor resembles a veranda, but when the curtain is closed, it becomes part of the interior, and the "internal garden" on the first floor becomes a closed space like a tsuboniva.

At completion, residents were surprised by the semi-outdoor space and use of curtains but gradually learned to use it, observing how children play in the pool in the internal garden with closed curtains and dine in the "external lounge" with closed curtains in the evening. It was joyful to discover new ways of using space in daily life. The building's appearance, with its external curtains and large openings, reminds one of a curtain on stage in the park. The expression of the curtains fluttering in the wind became a new symbol of the park.

-Qukan