Introducing Karuizawa Counterpoint, a custom-built home example by PODA Architects, a Architect / Design office in 1-2-1-403 Sendagaya, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, Japan

A villa built on a sloped site in Karuizawa. A sequence of undulating roofs, stepped floors and curved walls brings a time-based experience reminiscent of strolling through a forest into the interior of the house.

"Freedom and the Unpredictable"
The client, who leads a busy life in the city, desired a villa where family and guests can spend precious time at leisure in a rich forest. The client requested a house whose interior is not easily anticipated from its exterior. While it was necessary to consider how to plan the series of temporal experiences from the approach road to the interior, walking around the forest surrounding the mountainside site gave the impression that the landscape already possessed temporal qualities. The aim was a house that contained the experience of strolling through the woods—an unpredictable house. Seen from the upper part of the site, an undulating concrete roof appears to float midway on the slope. The organic silhouette overlapping the mountain ridge behind transforms as one descends the curved approach and eventually generates an arch that covers the visitor’s head. The roof is grounded on the slope above the parking area, where one can instantly experience a kind of "mountain walk." Inside, the roof’s undulations are directly reflected in the ceiling plane, allowing exploration within the house similar to walking through the surrounding forest. The changes in elevation of the slope intervene in the interior as terraced stepped floors, producing a rich variety of shifts in visitors’ sightlines.

"Counterpoint of the Landscape"
As one proceeds from the entrance through the gaps between trunk-like curved walls toward the living room, the ceiling becomes higher and more rounded and the view opens out to the distance. Each of these "trunks" has niches of various sizes carved into it that accommodate bookshelves, a kitchen, and a fireplace. One might "detour" to a bookshelf midway through a bath, or while cooking in the kitchen suddenly be captivated by the changing colors of the mountain ranges behind—diverse behaviors are opened up from the niches, creating incidental pleasures and discoveries. By wandering inside and outside the house, one can experience a polyphony performed from various places. The landscape in which architecture and nature overlap undergoes transformations and repetitions like music in counterpoint. As the body resonates with the environment, a long-forgotten sense of freedom is revived.