+ Project description courtesy of Miyahara Architect Office, text by Teruo Miyahara

House TTN, Tokyo, Japan – residence for an “urban” extended family
(All Images of House TTN, image courtesy of Miyahara Architect Office)

Project title: House TTN
Location: Tokyo , Japan
Project: 2003 – May 2005
Construction: Aug 2004 – May 2005
Architect: Teruo Miyahara / Miyahara Architect Office
Structural Engineer: Akira Ouchi / S.FORM
Constructor: Yoshiichi Yokota / Monolith Syuken
Photographer: Mitsumasa Fujitsuka
Building area: 214.49m2
Building hight: 8.5m

House TTN was designed to accommodate three families – the parents and the families of their two daughters. They had decided to live together again with the birth of grandchildren. Thus, the main objective for House TTN is to provide the necessary functions for an “urban” extended family, accommodating the needs of modern nuclear families who have grown accustomed to independent life but have chosen to enjoy the benefits of being part of a large family.The first request for this project was to have a sort of collective residence to accommodate three homes, a plan which would completely separate the families within the same building. However, after much thought on how to maximize convenience, the effective and rational use of the site, and the pleasure of each other’s company, House TTN decided to take a semi-independent, sharing approach.

In order to have more than one nuclear family live together as one, it is essential to secure a comfortable distance within the design. Thus, each family has their own independent kitchen unit, bathroom, and toilet, but the homes are adjoined through the ground floor area and common deck – inside and out. The parents’ living space is located on the ground floor, with a highly independent main room (that is also shared by all three families) as well as private rooms (one Japanese-style room and one bedroom) opening towards the outside. The first and second floors are divided east and west, creating living spaces for each daughter’s family. Outdoor common decks in between the two sides of each floor serve as both converging points and buffer space. Transparent glass and sudare or Japanese wooden blinds are used on the common decks to separate the families but at the same time avoid complete privacy. It is possible for each family to go about their business independently, but these purposefully built common areas make it possible to achieve a higher quality of life. A comfortable distance is achieved by softly compelling the families to come together.

Another important aspect of House TTN was its structure. As the decision had been taken not to separate the homes completely, the residents wished to retain an option that would enable them to cut the building in half, left and right, in case they wished to do so in the future. In order to make this possible, the two sides of the structure including the foundation are completely independent of each other, and designed to guarantee durability after being divided. Of course, if two new separate buildings were to emerge, they would both need to pass the various building regulations. Therefore, this aspect greatly influenced the initial plan and form of House TTN. However, it may also be said that because of this requirement, it was possible to achieve a bold design, shaping the areas that would be removed if the house were to be divided into outdoor common decks. It is unclear whether this option will be taken in the future, but having an alternative will surely encourage friendly and active communication between the families.

SETTING UP SOCIAL INFRASTRUCTURE

estudio teddy cruz:
living rooms at the border and senior gardens

Living Rooms at the Border and Senior Gardens are two small housing projects that emerge from the micro-policy and serve as catalysts to anticipate San Diego's needed densities and mixed-uses, while becoming a political instrument to enable Casa Familiar to further transform existing rigid zoning regulation for the border city of San Ysidro.

The informal negotiation of boundaries and spaces typical of this neighborhood become the basis for incremental design solutions that have a stimulating effect on the urban fabric.  In a small parcel where existing zoning allows only three units of housing, this project proposes, through negotiated density bonuses and by sharing kitchens, twelve affordable housing units, the adaptive re-use of an existing 1927 church on the site as a community center, offices for the non-profit in the church's new attic, and a community garden that serves as social armature to support this community's non-conforming micro-economies and improvisational public events.  Connected to the garden and the church, this armature is composed of a series of open-air rooms that contain electricity, serving as site for a variety of neighborhood activities.  The ambiguity of these spaces takes on a different meaning as they are inscribed with social program and community organization managed by Casa Familiar.  The pairing of ambiguity and specificity is the essence of this project.

In Living Rooms at the Border, the tactical interweaving of dwelling units and social service infrastructure transforms the small parcel into a system that can anticipate, organize, and promote social encounter.  Furthermore, Casa Familiar injects micro-economic tactics such as time banking through sweat equity to produce alternative modes of affordability (barter housing units, exchange of rent for social service, etc.).  In a place where current regulation allows only one use, we propose five different uses that support one another, suggesting a model of social sustainability for the neighborhood, one that conveys density not as bulk but as social choreography and neighborhood collaboration.

Senior Gardens is another project inspired by Casa Familiar's distinctive cultural values and attitudes toward domestic and public space.  Focused on bringing two generations together, the central elements of the program are affordable housing for seniors and grandchildren (a form of co-habitation common in this area of the city) and daycare facilities for children with working parents.  The program has been distilled into a system of layers in which private and public spaces are interwoven with the topography of the site.  The design is considered to be prototypical, another provocative instrument through which Casa Familiar hopes to redefine setback, land-use, and density requirements.


direct source : http://www.world-architects.com/index.php?seite=ca_profile_architekten_detail_us&system_id=14396

FAMILIAR FORMS

VitraHaus, Completion: 2009

Herzog & de Meuron

The "VitraHaus" is a direct architectural rendition of the ur-type of house, as found in the immediate vicinity of Vitra. By stacking, extruding and pressing simply shaped houses become complex configurations in space, where outside and inside merge. The interior is designed as a spatial sequence with suprising transitions and views of the landscape. 

Tokyo Apartment, Sou Fujimoto 2006-2009

The communal housing built in a residential area in the center of Tokyo consists of five dwelling units, including the owner's. Each unit consists of two or three independent rooms in pro typical "house" shapes, which are separated and located on several floors, connected by exterior stairs. Each dwelling unit is realized by the experience of linking two rooms and the city when passing along the outside. It is a collective housing that represents  "A tokyo that never exists (which) is made into a form intended to make an infinitely rich place that is crowded and disorderly"- Sou Fujimoto

Copyright for all Herzgog Images: Iwan Baan

Copyright for All SouFujimoto Images: Sou Fujimoto

On Corbusier

ERGONOMIC SYSTEM.Researching the ergonomic system addresses the interface between the human body and its domestic environment. It begins with Le Corbusier's Unite d'Habitation. The ergonomic positions of the human body linked to specific activities challenge the conventional living space sections through their continuous deformation of typically orthogonal floor and ceiling systems. 

NON-INTEGRATED/ ULTRA TRANSFORMABLE  vs. ULTRA-INTEGRATED UN TRANSFORMABLE

Two radical extremes in Le Corbusier's approach toward furniture and its performance- his chaise lounge vs. the bathing area at Villa Savoye. Although formally similar, one of these is totally integrated and fixed within the architecture, while the other is kinetic and remains isolated. 

Performative aspect by Le Corbusier: 

mapping of activities in a typical double unit of Unite d' Habitation

Image Sources:

1. Portrait of Charlotte Perriand on Corbusier's Chaise Lounge. Image provided by Mary McLeod.

2. Villa Savoye's bathing Area

3. As described

4. http://spacecollective.org/florianv/564/Unit-dhabitation

TERRITORIALISING SYSTEM

There are no " mute" walls in the Unite system; almost all internal wall divisions become vertical teritorialising devices , which are either transformable or hybrid assemblies of structure, storage, services, working surfaces etc. ( For example: the kitchen area is defined towards the lounge area only by its furniture; sleeping zones are identified by sliding partitions)

Canadian Case studies: which focus on complex internal combinations of slip-knot dwelling units.  

Europa 6, Montreal

As a result of the bridges, all the 56 cooperative apartments are through-units opening both into the courtyard and onto the street. "This means," Boutros maintains, "better cross ventilation, more and time-varied light penetration and a stronger sense of community intimacy for the residents." Second-level units also have access to their own individual garden terraces, delineated by hedges and each centred on a large tree planted in a deep soil trough.Two compact, crisply minimalist lobbies off McGill provide elevator and stair access to the west-side units reached by traversing the suspended bridges. Owners are thus provided with striking views of the harbour and the city on the way to and from their units. At the same time, says Boutros, from surrounding streets and the park (now being redeveloped), residents also become part of an animated tableau as they cross behind the screen of the north walkways.

Unity 2, Montreal

1. Unit: Unite d'Habitation, Corbusier

2. Europa 6, Les Architectes Boutros Et Pratte: Canadian Architect

3. Unity 2, Atelier Big City, Montreal : Canadian Architect

Proximity

Image:http://www.flickr.com/photos/booce/490529990/sizes/o/

Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/booce/490511182/

Hak Nam. Kowloon Walled City. City of Darkness.

Demolished in 1933.

35,000 people living in 200m x 100m of solid building

making my house

central : the temple

the idea of " self construction" :

illegal growth/autonomous district,

establishing territories

question of control

forgetting "capsular" civilization: the pack animal

rules of the game

ownership/governance of space

what does it mean to have to share?

Rethinking the apartment

a narrow sunroom ("engawa"), which constitutes an intermediate space or buffer zone between interior and exterior.

The Gifu Kitagata project proposes a shared urban community of closely knit apartments that create an urban allegory of the village. The circulation routes, storage space and laundry areas are used as the physical and communal connections. These are zones that are given the least attention in contemporary residential design.

Sejima allows the daily chores of laundry and basic house maintenance , usually completed by the women of the household, to become more prominent.

"These free zones of undefined ownership become "baits" for the inhabitants to gain extra space, more light and better ventilation. By enhancing the idea of sharing resources, this colonization of spaces tends to break the isolation of social housing and creates various types and sizes of communal space for the inhabitants to meet one another, hang out, team up and exchange conversation: a modem envision of the traditional neighbourhood.

Such communal space ultimately leads to the genuine public space of the housing scheme, blurring the boundary between the private garden and the public space. As a result, the design as a whole attempt to rethink how housing units and shared spaces function spatially, and on a macro perspective, how the identity of a locale is defined. "

Resource : http://www.irbdirekt.de/daten/iconda/CIB12250.pdf