Project Name: House in Kanazawa
Office Name: Shota Nakanishi Architects + Ohno-japan
Social Media Accounts: @shotanakanishi
Contact email: shota@nakanishi-a.jp
Firm Location: Hakusan, Ishikawa prefecture, Japan
Completion Year: 2019
Gross Built Area (m2/ ft2): 193.21 m2
Project Location: Kanazawa, Ishikawa prefecture, Japan
Program: house
Lead Architects: Shota Nakanishi
Lead Architects e-mail: shota@nakanishi-a.jp
Photographs: Shinkenchiku-Sha
This house is Highly Commended in the AR House Aword 2021 by The Architectural Review, and is designed by the Japanese architect Shota Nakanishi Architects and the structural architect Hirofumi Ohno. The site is a residential area in Kanazawa, Ishikawa prefecture, Japan, in the Hokuriku region. The Hokuriku region has the most rainy days of any region in Japan.
By carefully designing the plan and some environment to suit the owner’s lifestyle, while following the architectural structure and appearance of traditional Hokuriku architecture that makes the most of the natural environment, we aimed to create a house where people can live in contact with light, wind, and natural environmental sounds while staying indoors.
In the plan, the doma, which is a place for interaction with guests in traditional Hokuriku architecture, is reimagined as an indoor garden with a large roof that captures sunlight, allowing for open living even in bad weather and cold winters.
The direct light is adjusted for each season, cool in summer and warm in winter. The large roof allows a large amount of morning light to enter, creating a dynamic indoor scene.
As in traditional architecture, “doma” are separated by large fittings at interior and exterior, which can be adjusted to make the sound of wind and rain and the rumbling of thunder seem farther away than the visual distance, allowing us to enjoy the beautiful scenery of movement while sheltering from the wind and rain.
The architecture is built up in layers of many smaller thoughts, which are formulated with the aim of harmonising the whole environment, including people.
In response to the client’s request for “a house that makes you want to go home,” we proposed a house where the charming memories of each season and time are accumulated, and the charm of the place deepens with the passage of time.
