Comfort Gradients

Most architects treat circulation as wasted area that should be minimized and mechanically neutralized.

In this issue, I look at how Ryue Nishizawa turns circulation into a climatic experience instead.

Through House in Shochukichu and Moriyama House, I explore how intermediate spaces can expand comfort not by controlling climate absolutely, but by creating opportunities for adaptation.

I’ll then share how I connect these ideas to my own work.

Enjoy, and as always, thanks for your support,

In a dense neighborhood of Tokyo, Nishizawa creates what feels less like a hallway and more like a tiny private plaza.

This idea echoes observations made by Jane Jacobs and Jan Gehl, both of whom argued that cities function best when people move through gradients of public and private space rather than abrupt separations.

These intermediate conditions help us situate ourselves spatially and psychologically.
They expand the territory we informally occupy and identify with.

If Shochukichu thickens the threshold between inside and outside, Moriyama House dissolves it almost entirely. Here circulation doesn’t really exist. At least not in the common sense we tend to refer to it. It has been pushed out into this carefully calibrated “negative” space.

Nishizawa has been careful with the placement of the different volumes. He’s not looking at the space between these as the “left over”. He’s masterfully treating these to expand and contract this exterior to accommodate the different uses while also balancing intimacy.

The problem I see with this “house” lies within the concept itself. As much as I like the idea of being intentional with the circulation as he is here, the underlying premise of having each volume work independent of the other breaks it’s strength. What the architect calls boxes, I call units. The concept is powerful and it clearly inspired the Seijo Town houses done by Sejima.

In both projects, circulation is not leftover space. It becomes environmental mediation, where climate is not controlled but negotiated.

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Both these projects by architect Nishizawa are questioning 2 things modern architecture has taken for granted:

By reducing the amount of conditioned space, Nishizawa expands the inhabitant’s adaptive range instead of shrinking it.

The strategy is particularly powerful in Shochukichu because the Toriniwa offers protection from the elements while filtering light. It’s only normal to expect this space not to overheat as much as the outdoors, because heat can be released through the skylights. Similarly, by closing all apertures, air speeds will be reduced, keeping the warmth during the cooler times.

Because this space is clearly understood as intermediate rather than fully interior, thermal fluctuations become psychologically acceptable.

However, I’d argue that in Moriyama the relationship between outside and in is so tight that the limit just disappears. As seen in the image, life is happening exactly at this intersection. Comfort here is not achieved by separating interior from exterior, but by continuously moving between them.

Most contemporary buildings are designed around sameness.

Corridors, bedrooms, storage rooms and living spaces are all expected to maintain nearly identical conditions year-round.

This reduces spatial hierarchy and dramatically increases energy dependency.

Nishizawa’s work suggests that comfort may depend less on controlling climate absolutely, and more on carefully mediating our relationship to it.

As convinced as I am by these ideas, I still struggle to apply them fully in my own work. This is a project I’ve been working some time ago.

In it, the circulation was what animated the project, but it remains fully conditioned.

In part because of climate and regulations. But mostly because contemporary housing culture expects thermal uniformity.

Clients expect every square meter to behave identically throughout the year.
Any fluctuation is immediately perceived as a dangerous experiment at best and a failure at worse, rather than spatial character gain.

Still, I find myself increasingly interested in these intermediate conditions.

Not necessarily exterior circulation like Moriyama House, but spaces that slightly loosen the rigid boundary between conditioned and unconditioned environments. Spaces that can mediate climate rather than simply resist it.

I think architecture needs to move further in this direction. Even if current expectations still make that difficult.

You can learn more about this project in YouTube as I have documented the initial design steps in my channel. Unfortunately, we had a falling off with the client and the project reached a premature end.

All illustrations in this issue were generated and edited with A.I., except for the photograph of my own sketchbook.

I use these tools very intentionally.

Not to replace architectural thinking, but to give visual coherence to ideas I otherwise would not have the time to draw manually while balancing practice, teaching, writing, and content production.

Every image is directed, curated, corrected, and composed by me.

The technology accelerates representation, but the architectural judgment remains human.