Transitions with Space and Light in The Katsutadai House
A unique mixed-use building is sensitively designed employing interesting boundaries and transitions with space and light, functioning as a patisserie, restaurant and a home for a family of four people.
Located at Katsutadai, Chiba prefecture, Japan, this combined home and workplace houses a patisserie and restaurant on the 1st floor, while the 2nd and 3rd floors serve as a dwelling for a family of four people. The building’s immediately distinctive feature is an aerial wedge between the 1st and 3rd floors, creating a sense of separation between the bulky concrete form that floats above and the glass-ceilinged patisserie below it. This aerial wedge changes its character as a photic layer at different times – during the day it functions as a light-well for the patisserie on the 1st floor, and at night, the lights leaking from this aperture takes on the appearance of an opened treasure box. The side walls of the patisserie starts at 1.8 meters high at the front, and gradually gets higher towards the back, creating an impression of open-ness and integration into the narrow side lanes.
The two distinct spaces of a shop and dwelling have an inter- observing relationship, with each space having a particular sense of distance to the surrounding environment. The shop space embraces the street – creating a a continuous exterior with the streetscape, where it is only surrounded by low walls. The dwell- ing on the other hand, is a more separated form, floating above the street with no noticeable openings toward the street. This way, the residents can neither see opposing buildings nor vice versa, creating a cocooned privacy.
Total separation was not the goal however, and a ‘wind-path’ was designed to bring wind and sounds from the outside into the inside space, allowing the residents to subtly feel the atmosphere of the street. A point to note is that the previous home for the family combined a shop and dwelling as well, and privacy and separation was a concern between the two spaces. Curtains always had to be kept closed due to concerns about prying eyes from street, and noises made from children running upstairs troubled the operation of the patisserie below. As such, the family’s new home is an attempt to solve these problems.
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