A Home for Taking It Easy on Solid Sugi Cedar Floors｜kurachiffon Miki Takiuchi First-Class Architect’s Office
◯ Project Overview
Because both spouses work busy schedules, we designed the home with the following priorities in mind so that the family could secure time to relax together at home with their child:
・Smooth, efficient household chores
・A storage plan that places the right storage in the right locations, keeping the rooms uncluttered
For a family with a small child, the need for individual bedrooms is at least ten years away. With the most demanding stage of child-rearing—“now”—in mind, we boldly devoted an entire room to laundry and a family walk-in closet.
◯ The Motivation for Building the Home and the Clients’ Requests
They wanted a home where the whole family could take their time and truly relax.
They wanted to enjoy raising their child freely and without constraint.
They also wanted to install a gas-powered clothes dryer.
◯ Highlights and Design Considerations
We focused on two points: how to create a space for the child, and how to make the storage on the living-room side of the kitchen counter easy to use. We kept costs down by having the furniture fabricated and finished on site as part of the carpentry work.
◯ The Clients’ Impressions
They selected several architecture firms near their home on Google Maps and spoke with each of them before choosing our firm. Because their child was still small, they said it was extremely helpful that we were able to hold the meetings at their home.
Below are the clients’ comments:
The home is spacious and comfortable, and I feel that it has given us more room to breathe emotionally. Household chores have become easier to manage, and we are now able to use our time more efficiently. Our child can also run around the house to their heart’s content, which makes us bright and happy.
◯ How the Project Progressed
We initially received an inquiry about a detached house. However, because we could not find land or a property that met their wishes, the project became a renovation of a garden apartment unit. From the outset, the clients told us that they were also consulting several other architecture firms. After presenting our proposal, we talked about how much we liked the local area. It seems that, through that casual conversation, they sensed that we shared common values.
◯ What Remains Most Memorable
Their child was very young and once cried throughout an entire meeting. As the designer, my own children had already grown up—one was in high school and the other in elementary school—so seeing the crying child was adorable, nostalgic, and adorable all over again... As I designed the home, I thought about how wonderful it would be if, as this child grew up, they came to love their home, feel relieved whenever they returned, and think, “This is fun!”
