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Houses • Oda, Japan Architects: y+Mdo

Area Area of this architecture project Area: 142 m²

Text description provided by the architects. The owners of the Stair House are are a young couple, both teachers, with two young children. When they hired architects y+Mdo to design their dream home, they had three key themes in mind; A house that could protect their privacy, provided warm and bright space, and could also encourage the gathering of people as they love their students visiting them.

For more photographs and details of the Stair House follow the break.

The property is located at seaside, and in the winter months suffers from the strong, cold sea wind and a short number of daylight hours. To the south of the property there is a 3 meter wide road and a 4 meter high bank leading to open ground. From the West is a combination of strong direct sunshine and sea wind. To the North is a road to the local village and to the East lies a two-storey house. The architects response to the site challenges and keeping the interests of their clients in mind the design result was a stair shaped house.

To allow sunlight into the house, there are a number of glass slits in between the steps on the south side. The glass slits provide a dual purpose of vision connection and natural light along with privacy. The material used for the stair shaped wall are porcelain tiles and require low maintenance.

The outside structure links the garden to the rooftop and the inside of the house links a private porch/reception/lounge area to the bedrooms. The windows are designed and situated to allow in as much sunlight as possible, whilst retaining privacy.

Additionally, the Stair House allowed both daylight and ventilation to penetrate into its interior. In summer, the house has a nice breeze blowing through the small garden situated on the south side and removes heat through ventilation fans on the north side. The slit windows eliminate direct sunshine, however provides indirect reflected light into the house.

In winter, this design keeps the house warm by allowing the maximum amount of sunlight into the house in addition to the comforting warmth from the under floor heating and a wood-fire.