C4L House / CUBO Design Architect

Architect: CUBO Design Architect

Place: Tokyo, Japan

Year: 2022

Photographer: Koji Fujii / TOREAL

In traditional Japanese homes, deep eaves linked the interior with the garden; from the dim rooms inside, residents admired the bright garden and spent the evenings by lamplight. Human life unfolded within such spaces for many centuries. As Junichiro Tanizaki writes in “In Praise of Shadows,” there are materials and furnishings whose beauty and comfort can only be fully appreciated in the half-light of a traditional home. Then there is the relationship between exterior and interior, expressed in the saying teioku ichinyo, meaning harmony between architecture and garden.

We feel that by drawing on these traditions as well as on the natural sensibility of the Japanese people, and by incorporating many materials and furnishings imbued with the warmth of things made by hand, it is possible to create truly restful environments. Fully expressing this traditional Japanese sensibility was our goal in this project. The design attempts to both improve upon Japanese culture and fuse it with diverse other cultures to achieve a comfortable living space. We paid close attention to the contrast between light and dark, creating both subdued areas that express the beauty of weak light and more dynamic areas filled with strong light. The atmosphere throughout is luminous, the result of our pursuit of light’s beauty.

Traditional artisans transformed soil, trees, and other natural materials into a wide range of architectural forms; illuminated by beautiful light, these forms became spaces with great depth. The concept for this project was to collaborate with seven traditional artisans specializing respectively in sukiya carpentry, plaster, Japanese paper, mullions, braided chord, screens and doors, and lacquer. Integrating the highly distinctive work of seven artisans into one unified space was not easy, but the result is a completely unique atmosphere.

We believe houses that are rooted in an understanding of Japan’s cultural context and a respect for the skills and innovations of our ancestors but which can nevertheless be passed on to future generations are the kind of houses we should be building in Japan today. Our designs encapsulate this concept, offering Japanese-style luxury. Although our collaboration with world-class artisans in this project required much effort, it was deeply inspiring. The resulting home embodies the tranquility and exquisite tension that is the true strength of Japanese culture while subtly evoking wabi-sabi, the beauty of imperfection.