Architects:A.A.E.

Area:297 m²

Year:2022

Photographs:Shigeo Ogawa

Lead Architect:Taketo Shimohigoshi

Structural Design:Jun Sato Structural Design Office

Building Construction:Shin

Architects: Taketo Shimohigoshi, Masami Hanaoka, Soichiro Nakata

Design Collaboration: Atelier Ambient Architecture

Equipment Design: GN Facility Planning

City: Shibuya City

Country: Japan

Ouloukyo is a living space around a Sakura tree.

Pillars and a Roof - “We want to make a living space surrounding a Sakura tree.” From this client, the request had sprung up an image of a roof made of juxtaposed wood pieces gently enfolding the space.

The space was outlined with two quarter-elliptic lines at varied curvatures, offset from the opening to set the tree within. The finished roof is supported by 23 pillars and is composed of 159 exposed rafters; plotted by polar coordinates, these closely-spaced rafters fan out from the inner arc and gradually undulate. This wooden frame, built independent of the reinforced concrete frame (encircling the tree flooring   ), resists seismic forces by bending stresses in the pillar bases, thereby eliminating the need for structural braces. Thus a soft, open living space has appeared, shaped by a roof-and-pillar frame.

Primitive Hut of This Age - Throughout planning this space, I kept thinking about what a present-day “primitive hut” is. The hut’s frame was built by pursuing a vibrant expression of human signs within technology and by engaging this vibrancy with the locality’s cultural landscape anchored in wooden construction. My hope is that this “primitive hut” made of roof and pillars will continue to accumulate new memories of this place as the Sakura tree grows.