For this project, we were commissioned to renovate a three-sectioned single-storey wooden house located on a seaside cliff and turn it into a weekend residence. Special efforts were made to highlight the existing beauty and other features of the building and site, including its lush natural surroundings, a view of the nearby idyllic fishing port, wide open sky, simple Japanese design and layout, and open plan spaces. Refurbishment was carried out mainly to show off these enviable characteristics to their best advantage.

Relying on a muted palette of colors for the ceiling and walls helped the furniture and surrounding scenery to retain their unique character. By color-coordinating the interior scheme with the existing tones of the house, new furnishings were able to blend in seamlessly. Allowing the external landscape to be visible within the house, and letting various desirable elements come to the surface, we were able to design a building where the surrounding environment becomes part of the interior.

The eight-paneled sliding doors on both the left and right side of the living room that provided the main openings were replaced with two larger sliding doors in two places. By enlarging these openings that give onto the exterior, we were able to bring some of the tranquility of the nearby fishing village into the house.

The walls in the corridor used to be the external walls of this house. Painting the new external walls in the same shade of white created a space that resembles a narrow alleyway running between individual residences. The bathroom features full-length windows facing the ocean. By using bright white walls and mortar floors, and reducing the number of colors and materials used for the finishes, we created a space that thoroughly incorporated the ocean and greenery within it.

This project was not about creating something completely new. After repeated visits to the site and meetings with our client (sometimes even spending the night in the house), we made a series of careful decisions about what we should retain and which parts we should get rid of, thinking about which areas of the house were fine as they were, and which were less than ideal. The several features that remained on our list after this filtering process were then fine-tuned and adjusted using reliable, tried-and-tested techniques, and restored to their original splendor.



PROJECT DATA

Project by: ROOVICE
Architect: ROOVICE
Project team: ROOVICE (member: Nov Fukui, Takashi Kudo)
Construction management: ROOVICE

Site area: 501.71m2
Building area: 154.85m2
Total floor area: 154.85m2

Study: July 2010
Construction: March 2011 - January 2012

Photography: Sayaka Mochizuki