House Built Over a Pastry Shop by Yuko Nagayama & Associates // Chiba, Japan.

‘Katsutadai House’ is located in the suburban neighborhood of Katsutadai (Chiba) East of Tokyo, Japan. The owners are a well established pastry shop known for their killer apple pie, baking for the neighbourhood since 1977. After 35 years in business, they decided to shake things up a little. They enlisted the help of Yuko Nagayama & Associates who have designed the building consisting of a small pastry shop on ground floor, with a 2-level concrete box that contains a family home.

The relationship between two building volumes is a particularly striking aspect of this project. The sloping glass roof above the bakery creates a triangulated void allowing natural light to spill into the retail space. Equally important is the illusion of the gravity defying concrete hovering over the bakery. You beauty.

[Photography by Daici Ano. Images courtesy of Yuko Nagayama & Associates.]