House Komazawa Park by miCo // Japan.

Judging from the outside, House Komazawa Park is one of those places you simply wouldn’t see coming. The project is an extension of a thirty year old dwelling, nestled in a densely populated district where wooden houses sit like a compact cluster of timber frames. From the outside, House Komazawa is fragmented and appears quite small; inside, however, it is surprisingly light and spacious. Working with the existing two-storey structure, Mizuki Imamura & Isao Shinohara of miCo made it their aim to re-interpret the wooden home so common in Japan, and modify the landscape it sat in.

Responding to the existing space and surrounding houses, the architects decided to create three separate units – one of them new, the other two modifications of existing structures. This strategy softened the outside look, while making the best use of the little sunlight the property gets. With each space having its own outdoor area, and all three units connected by the tall and narrow transparent volumes and one continuous room that runs through, the house is much lighter and open that it was – or than it may appear.

With the load-bearing timber structure that was already in place, miCo could extend and adapt the entire house to fit a family by a matter of adding and subtracting various beams where needed. Not only have they utilised what already existed efficiently, Mizuki and Isaoso show how a building of any era can be slowly modified over time without losing a sense of continuity. While its aesthetic may be somewhat fragmented, the design has a definite sense of flow as a whole; the spaces connect and old and new sit comfortably alongside each other. Just beautiful.

[Photography by Koichi Torimura and Takashi Suo.]