This is a plan for a quiet residential area in Ishikari City, Hokkaido.

The site is on a corner of a spaciously laid out neighborhood, where each lot’s size is designated to be more than 200㎡ in the district plan. With the field of a middle school on the north side, the site has an open view and abundant roadside trees.

The clients are a sociable couple in their thirties with two children, and they have many friends and relatives.

The design process started with a hint: a house for welcoming many guests.

We thought the house will be a stress-free place to welcome many guests, if it has no explicit boundaries between private and public spaces, and if its spaces can be altered depending on the occasion.

Since the neighborhood is spacious, the house is not surrounded by fences, and an emphasis was placed on a feeling of continuation with the neighborhood. A sense of distance was adjusted by setting multiple stages from outside to the inside: the neighborhood→ garden → terrace → roofed terrace → inner terrace (doma) → open corridor→ the living room/dining room/kitchen or private spaces on the second floor.

The garden to the private spaces can be used as a continuous open space, or can be segmented to be used as small spaces.

The inner terrace (doma) on the first floor is connected to the free space on the second floor via the open ceiling, and the living room on the first floor is connected to the bedrooms on the second floor via the open ceiling.

While securing private spaces, the plan created spaces to connect the family members.

The exterior wall above the terrace overhangs 910mm, in order to have a large-sized roofed terrace and floor area on the second floor.

Communications diffuse from the inner terrace (doma)—an obscure, outdoor-like space.

※doma＝“earthen floor space of traditional Japanese houses ”