The Hokusutsu Polygon House in Takatsuki-city, Japan, designed by Shintaro Fujiwara, integrates a greenbelt backdrop with a unique polygonal layout. This design obscures interior directionality, strategically framing views of greenery and sky throughout the space.
The exterior features red cedar and contrasting green walls, while the interior walls are painted orange, enhancing the connection to the lush surroundings.
The site faces a greenbelt across the road with a 2-meter difference in elevation within it.We wanted to design a residence that would utilize this greenbelt as a backdrop and maintain continuity with the hilly streetscape.In planning the project, we considered the following points:
– The greenbelt is only on one side of the site. But is it possible to create a feeling of being surrounded by it by carefully arranging the flow lines and the floor plans and reflecting the landscape inside the house?
– Is it possible to position part of the building foundation diagonally against the embankment in the plan so that the building naturally blends with the slope?
Based on these considerations, the walls were arranged in a polygonal shape, obscuring the directionality of the interior. We designed the plan so that the greenery across the street would appear in the line of sight from various locations in the house.
Regarding the building configuration, a parking lot occupies the area where the site meets the street, and the building is accessed from the north side of the site along the slope. On the first floor, the kitchen, dining room, living room, and workspace are located from the street side to the back of the building to form an integrated space, with a closet, and wet areas such as a bathroom, washroom behind them. The windows and flow lines have been carefully designed so that one can see the greenery and sky from the stairwell, stairs, study, and other areas.
Regarding the choice of materials, we used orange-painted lauan boards for the walls at the same height as the windows so that the view would be framed by walls of a contrasting color to the green landscape, making the green belt appear closer to the inside of the house. The exterior is composed of red cedar for the continuous areas with the windows and a contrasting green color for the main exterior walls.
