Project: Cliff House
Architects: Planet Creations Seiya Masato Architectural Design Bureau
location: Tenkawa, Japan
Area: 775 sf
photos by: Shinkinshiku sha, Akira Keita
Cliff House by Planet Creations
PLANET Creations Sekiya Masato Architecture Design Office designed the stunning Cliff House located in Tenkawa Village, Japan. This contemporary abode is located just 2,000 feet above sea level yet surrounded by the epic Omeni mountain range. The site offers access to stunning views, so the design aims to make the most of it.
The site is located in Tenkawa Village, which is 600 meters above sea level, surrounded by the Omine Mountain Range, in the central part of Yoshinogun, Nara Prefecture. It is a holiday villa for the doctor and his wife who love fishing. Before the eye was a virgin forest, one of Tenkawa’s Hundred Beautiful Scenes, and decided that the villa should be a space that includes a view across the forest and the magnificent waters of the Ten River, a branch of the upstream stream of the Kumano River. However, even at the initial stage of planning, when the owner suggested that he would be content with a simple hunting cabin, I noticed difficulties. A large proportion of the site was a steep slope sloping 17 meters towards the Ten River, and the flat was only 6 square metres, so once parking for two cars had been created, there was nowhere to build.
Because of the possibility of the steeply sloping river bank collapsing or the river rising, it would be dangerous to put a long pole on the shore and support the housing on that side, but if we build a two-storey structure beside the road, with parking on the first floor and housing on the second, beautiful scenery will suffer . The solution was to dig down almost to the rock and plunge the building into the ground, then extend it into the air over the river. The key to structure is to create balance.
It has a structure like a balance, set on a flat rock base, with a frilly concrete column as the fulcrum, and a block of concrete as a counterweight. As a result, we created a 6-meter cantilever with a tubular reinforced concrete structure of 5.2 x 2.5 meters, and were able to secure sufficient internal space. The interior plan of the long avenues is divided into kitchen/laundry/bathroom space and living space, and the end extending outward is wide open to forest and river. The area that needs the most light is the roof area, the next is the living/dining room and the last is the bedroom, so they are arranged in this order. Each area is separated by fully foldable sliding doors, and by opening the sliding doors, the view of the green landscape flows into the bedroom.
—Planet Creations, architectural design bureau of Sekiya Masato
