February 6, 2011

O-House: People, Kids Actually Living In Japanese Modernist House

o-house_exterior_designboom.jpg

The annoying thing about architecture porn goes triple for Japanese houses: they're always photographed completely empty, or with like one chair, as if they weren't in the land of the manga-hoarding otaku; there's never a trace of kids or family; and worse, they always have these flying staircases of death, to make the 8-level, 800-sf spatial Jenga puzzle feel more open.

So who has the power to change that? Eizo Okada, the editor of dezain.net, one of the world's leading architecture blogs. He sent along 1-year-later photos of O-House, his family's house in Kyoto, designed by Hideyuki Nakayama. And guess what, they actually live in it! With two little boys!

o-house_stokke_designboom.jpg

Obviously, after you get past the all-glass facade that closes only with a silvery curtain, the first thing you see is that RED Stokke Tripp-Trapp high chair. Nicely done. But you'll probably have to go to the bigger picture at designboom to see the real breakthrough: the staircase is wrapped in fine white mesh. So is the open edge of the sleeping loft. Nice.

Not kid-related, but also awesome: the rough, wide-plank wood floors. Also awesome: Okada's upended widescreen video on Vimeo showing how the house actually works. We need more tallscreen video.

Hideyuki Nakayama O-House; O-House Update [designboom]
Crazy Japanese modernist house not included: Buy a Stokke Tripp Trapp Highchair for $234 or so [amazon]

1 Comment

Wish I could have my own personal version of this house!!

Thanks for posting this update, I had seen an article on the house before, so it's great to see how it's been modified to be kid-friendly and how it looks when lived-in.

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