Blurring public and private space, House in Kawasaki by Taichi Mitsuya & Associates transforms suburban Tokyo living with a porous design that fosters openness, light, and communal interaction.
The House in Kawasaki is an exercise in openness, where architecture acknowledges and engages with the social rhythms of its surroundings. Positioned along a gravel cul-de-sac, the house extends this material seamlessly into its footprint, dissolving conventional property lines. The north-facing living room anchors the home, while a dynamic sequence of skip floors on the southern façade maximizes spatial fluidity and light penetration.
Central to the design is the notion of the street as an extension of domestic life. The architects observed that neighbors treat the cul-de-sac as an informal gathering space, akin to a communal park. In response, they devised a permeable façade: a soaring 9-meter-high volume bisected by a glass roof, where a folding wooden wall can retract to merge the home's interior with the streetscape. This gesture transforms the residence into a living threshold, oscillating between enclosure and exposure, privacy and participation. More than a dwelling, House in Kawasaki is an urban prototype—a testament to architecture's potential to shape communal interactions within the constraints of contemporary city life.
