Sakai City, Osaka Prefecture. A residence sited on the mid-slope of a gentle hill left behind by new‑town development. We established a single, large house‑shaped volume with a square plan measuring 8.1 m on each side, and by inserting four small houses that emanate from each corner within it a cruciform void is produced between the small houses. Because each small house assumes a different internal volume according to its functional requirements, the gaps become not clean intersections but distorted spaces akin to the four corners of a back alley. The small houses and these corner spaces are connected by incised apertures; they invert and, alternately opening and closing, nurture the inhabitants' daily life. The exterior is conceived as an abstract house‑shaped icon clad in the tactile texture of yakisugi (charred cedar), while the interior, despite a complex skip‑floor spatial arrangement, is composed as a simple white cube. By balancing these opposing conditions, we conceived a dwelling appropriate to this site where the new town and the old village press against one another and age together, approaching a certain equilibrium.
Two‑story timber construction. Design area: 45 tsubo (148 m²). Architectural and building‑services design supervision: Yoshihiro Yamamoto and Kaori Mitsuhashi (YYAA). Structural design supervision: Ippei Yasue (Workshop). Construction (contractor): Masaki Construction. Kitchen: KANWORKS. Lighting design: Shingo Ishido (DAIKO Osaka TACT). Fabrics: fabricscape. Landscape and external works: Takeo Matsushita (soji).