Kiyose House

150m2 Renovation - Kiyose, Tokyo
Will Galloway, Koen Klinkers, Yuka Takeuchi

We were asked to think of the suburban house as if it were an old factory ready for new life. A challenging request, because the modern Japanese home is not materially expressive and has no patina of age. Nor could it ever form one, given the intentionally short lifespan of its finish and construction.

Tearing down and rebuilding is more common in Japan than re-use. Simple economics explains part of the culture. The value of a Japanese home depreciates with time, meaning land is the only asset remaining once a mortgage is paid. Financing the re-use of a home is challenging as a result, and budgets are thin. When buildings are seen as liability more than investment it is not surprising they are built as cheaply as possible, finished on outside and inside with short-lived materials. A 25 year-old home is considered old and antiquated in this environment. Re-use is a challenge, but worth undertaking, and a needed change for Tokyo.

This project is treated as a series of simple inserts (of walls and furniture) into the shell of the original wooden structure. Designed for a septuagenarian couple with a need for a flexible interior and a simple raised garden on the outside, it is a deliberate response to the suburban house typology, a model for change through re-use rather than demolition. The design makes spaces instead of rooms, connects rather than divides, acknowledges context instead of retreating from it. On the exterior the house is exaggerated, a drawing of itself in black and white, a symbol of the ideal home of the imagination.