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A House on Hachijo Island
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Location:Kashitate, Hachijio Island, Tokyo

Client:Ikuma Dan

Total floor area: 160㎡

Use:Atelier

Year:1994

This villa is a composer’s weekend house, and is built on a platform overlooking the southwestern sea of Hachijo Island, located in the Pacific Ocean 300 kilometers south of Tokyo. The lot slants gently towards the sea, and is found at the corner of a great slope on the skirts of a mountain that extends from Mount Hachijo Mihara to a precipice approximately one kilometer ahead. The road along the site winds down towards the ocean, and this delicate irregularity of the site gives the villa its main character, in the form of a response to its surroundings. Two hedge walls define the edge of the site; these walls extend downward along the road towards a stage that faces the direction towards the ocean at the end of the terrace.

The building is shaped like a partially trimmed arc, and its chord faces westward to Mount Kurosuna, which has a distinct terrain of black sand dunes. Though the viewing deck on top of the house is heading for the black sand dune, the inner arc is open to the south on the contrary, making space between itself and the roadside wall to avoid the intense evening sun and the forceful winds from the west. Moreover, the convex curve of the arc was arranged diagonally to the stage in consideration of the acoustics when it is used as a theater. Hachijo Island is known for the clear, blue seawater of the Black Current from the Philippine Sea and the Marianas. Yet the location of the villa being on a major passageway for typhoons, severe rainfall and strong wind occasionally cause a condition in which the building resembles a fishing boat dashing through very stormy weather. In addition to confronting with the island’s wild weather, this house is designed to function both as a working space and as an open-air concert theater for the composer.

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