Ibaraki Farm House


180m2 renovation - Ibaraki, Tokyo
Will Galloway, Koen Klinkers, Yuka Takeuchi, Mongkoloudom Chhiv
Photographs: Toshiyuki Yano

A project to re-imagine the use of a post-war farmhouse, two hours north of Tokyo. We were asked to update the home to accommodate a septuagenarian couple, their daughter, son-in-law, and three children. The house was originally built quickly and efficiently with traditional, and sometimes ad-hoc techniques. Like many homes in Japan of that time it was never properly insulated and showed its age after decades of use, scores of storms, and earthquakes. 

The original house plan was more open and flexible, with sliding doors and perimeter hallways connecting rooms together. However the house became closed and awkward as the country westernized and daily life followed a new cultural path. We reset the design by stripping the interior to its timber frame and rebuilding within it. The new plan is created by placement of boxes within the exposed forest of columns, forming a bath, washroom, bedrooms, and a new stair to the children’s room above. An opening between floors connects the levels and brings light to the interior. Old is privileged over the new. A large kitchen counter is shaped by the way it accepts columns or dodges around them. Tatami floors in bedrooms similarly sidestep columns, while pieces of the house are simply left as they were, or re-used as screens or dividers.

The refreshed home is ready for decades more use. In Japan, where homes are normally destined for a life of twenty or thirty years, that is a radical outcome.