Suzuko Yamada Architects Builds Compact Brutalist Residence in Tokyo
The “Nakano House” by the Japanese firm features dramatic, yet functional concrete volumes.
Suzuko Yamada Architects has unveiled a newly built Tokyo residence with a striking, yet cozy Brutalist style. Named the “Nakano House,” the building unfolds in multiple concrete levels within a small lot near a bustling shopping district. With the firm’s skillful design, the interior’s megalithic volumes and raw materiality create a sense of timelessness and spatial ambiguity in one of the world’s busiest metropolises.
While the different levels and rooms peek through the steps and railings, lofted levels are configured to obscure the scale of structural elements. “The house should belong to the inhabitant but seems to evade ownership, belonging to nobody, existing in place as if it were a mountain or the city itself,” the firm said in a statement.
Within the property measuring roughly 280sqft, the structure breaks the home into a stack of separate spaces via concrete stairways that spiral and zig-zag through the open plan. With three levels and a roof equaling 560sqft, the home has the small-scale charm of urban Japanese architecture, while challenging the ephemerality that characterizes many local buildings.
The gray concrete with its visible dimples bears an organic and unfinished sensibility aligning with the aesthetic principles of wabi-sabi — a Japanese artistic quality that embraces natural imperfection. The monolithic material of the home creates a blank canvas for the homeowners and their objects to inject the space with uniquely human characteristics. Suzuko Yamada Architects shares that “life and nature are in tension” with the architecture” of the Nakano house. “They exist together and sometimes connect, but never blend. The architecture triggers life and life strengthens the architecture,” the firm continued.
See the gallery above for a detailed look at Suzuko Yamada Architect’s Nakano House.
