Fujii House

1982

ID: 00000828

The first floor is a dental clinic, and the residential quarters are on the second floor. A lightweight wooden construction frame stands atop the podium-like reinforced-concrete structure on the first floor. I wanted to make the reinforced concrete as heavy as possible and the wooden frame as simple as possible. This is a building made of just columns and beams.

The family room in the center of the courtyard is glazed virtually on all four sides. The glass is inserted simply and directly into the structural columns and beams without any window-frame. This was to make it look like a simple building made of just columns and beams. It is without window-frames because I wanted the building to be as integrated as possible with the outside. Modern architecture, particularly houses, are equipped with a great deal of heat insulation and sufficient mechanical systems to minimize influence by the outside world. I wanted to create a house that was, in the manner of many primitive houses in the days before modernization, in contact with the outside world as much as possible. The entire courtyard is a place like a living room.