Kyoto Hill House with Traditional forms by atelier BORONSKI

By Alex Rene - Last updated: Wednesday, February 23, 2011 - Leave a Comment

Named T-House, this japanese style house was stands with majestic on a small hill overlooking Kyoto city. Designed by a bilingual design office based in Kyoto ie Atelier BORONSKI, which has foreign experience and local knowledge in residential and commercial projects in the Kansai and Kanto regions. This traditional forms hill house exterior is clad in traditional materials of burnt cedar boards (with clear lacquer finish) and white plaster make it actually very durable. This house is on the snow-line in winter but constantly in a high level of thermal performance which was achieved with in-ground under-floor heating, double glazing and external insulation. Therefore the house is conceived of as a simple container with private spaces lodged almost randomly within. There are three primary elements at work in this composition, ie The main external walls (running east/west), the private volumes (overlapping and bridging) and the resultant void space extending above the Living, Dining, Kitchen area.

The LDK on the first floor opens onto the main terrace facing the garden to the east allowing classical indoor/outdoor living, and the ceiling height in this area varies from 2.5m to 7.5m. The two main bedrooms bridge the building, and their north/south facing walls of glass allow the external cladding to continue into the rooms (one white plaster, one black timber). The bathroom on the second floor has a large internal window overlooking the garden to the east and the guest bedroom on the third floor pushes straight out to the west. Beside and below this bedroom are two minor terraces that spatially overlap. The second lounge area on the third floor is just a floor slab, a viewing platform that bridges the main void and allows sweeping views of the city to the east. There are also two top-lights allowing vertical views to the sky. The garage door facing the street (to the west) is fully camouflaged as a wall of horizontal louvers that continues up to form the railing for the second floor terrace. But it is the fluidity of the resultant void spaces and the curved connecting stairways that finally let the house go free. There are many different kinds of spaces and connections in this house that work to create an extremely ‘socialized’ kind of environment.