Photo by Iwan Baan
1. The Sketch
Hey there sketcher!
A couple of weeks ago I published a video in my YouTube channel about different strategies architects employ to blur the limits between inside and out. In it I used a few houses to illustrate these strategies, but as Samurajhipis2313 has pointed out, I left out “House N” by Sou Fujimoto.
Of course, I couldn’t include every project that explores the boundary between interior and exterior in an innovative way… but this one should have made the cut, and you’ll see why if you keep reading. This issue is my way of correcting that mistake!
Pedro Augspach
The Sketch
Original photo by Iwan Baan
Oita in the island of Kyushu, Japan
The house sits in a relatively dense urban tissue in the city of Oita, on Japan’s southern island of Kyushu. Here, gardens often feel like “leftover” or neglected space, gaps between buildings rather than deliberate compositions. With a plot of just under 240 m², fitting one in was already a challenge. And even if Fujimoto managed it, he clearly didn’t want it to feel like the forgotten spaces of the surrounding neighborhood.
Conventional House
Future house
Source I Sou Fujimoto & Associates
But that raised a problem: privacy.
Would he just erect a blind wall along the street? How could he mediate the transition from public to private, from city to home, without losing openness, but still managing privacy?
Original photo by Iwan Baan
The house is a box within a bow within a bow
His solution was ingenious: a box within a box within a box.
Each layer defines a new degree of intimacy, a gradation between inside and out.
But it’s not a simple progression from public to private, it’s more nuanced than that.
The outer box, made of white concrete, encloses most of the site. It’s mostly semi-permeable, punctured by openings which observe the proportions established by the golden ratio.
To maintain the purity of the “box within a box” illusion, Fujimoto had to avoid beams, parapets, and gutters altogether.
Photo by Iwan Baan
Imagine this house with a parapet. Or worse, a shiny metallic gutter running down a corner. It would have broken the spell completely. We would probably not even be talking about it now.
Instead, he achieved this seamlessness through photocatalytic, hydrophilic white concrete. In simpler terms, self-cleaning concrete.
Rainwater slides down the facade, taking away dirt and dust without staining it, preserving the crisp white geometry, while at the same time allowing for the existence of these sharp angles.
Sketch studying the 3 boxes interacting
Even the thickness of the walls and ceilings are perfectly and intentionally matched. A subtle detail, but one that enhances the perception of each box as a single continuous shell.
Source I Sou Fujimoto and Associates
The middle box, is again made of concrete, and is the one that encloses the proper house with the bathroom and kitchen spilling into the space created in between these two boxes, along with the garden and double parking space.
Sketch analyzing the section
We then have the inner box. This one is made of wood, and contrary to what you would expect, houses the most public parts of the house, not the private ones. So it is in here where we find the living and dining room. In the space between the two inner boxes we have the bedroom and the tatami room which doubles as a guest bedroom.
This may seem strange at first (it did to me), but then you come to realize that life is meant to happen all the way inside.
It’s as if the architect thought of different layers of gradation from the inner most shell, to the 2nd, then third layer, the city block, the city itself and then the island of Kyushu, and so on…
I’d like to close this section by quoting a very nice phrase from Sou Fujimoto himself:
“ One might say that an ideal architecture is an outdoor space that feel like the indoors and an indoor space that feels like the outdoors”.
I agree.
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2. The Thought I The Beacon of Light
At night, House N reverses itself.
The openings that once framed fragments of the city now glow from within.
Light is not only emitted by the house, but it is also bounced around internally by the ceiling. A ceiling which is a true “Fifth façade”. This effect is enhanced by the fact that there is no glass in the outer shell that would produce reflections. One can really feel the “hollow” aspect of the house, creating a “floating” or emptiness effect that promotes tranquility.
Extract from the film by Victor Hecht
It is also important to note the effect not only in filtering the light, which is evident in the photos by Iwan Baan, but in mitigating the temperature. The buffer space between the 2 external walls is clearly not conditioned. Nevertheless, this space must feel quite agreeable, at least throughout most of the year. I can’t say I’ve studied the thermal performance of this house, or the climate in Oita itself. I haven’t. But the strategy itself is worth highlighting.
That outer shell is without a doubt lowering the air movement within that space. When we are cold, in outdoor spaces, it’s actually more important to reduce wind speeds, than to have solar exposure. As a rule of thumb and for most cases. This allows for any warmth to build up, through passive gains and thermal mass, to actually remain in this space
3 The Work
Coming up!
Child playing - Low metabolic rate
On my side, this week has been about refining drawings and preparing new scripts. So I haven’t had time yet to polish the drawing from my thermal comfort guide, which is meant to come out soon.
I’ve also been working on moving The Architect’s Sketchbook to its new home on Beehiiv. I’m not sure yet if I’ll make the full transition, but I’m thinking about it. I feel that I’ll be able to share these analyses more fluidly and, soon, offer deeper guides and essays for those who want to go further.
As always, thank you for reading. Your attention truly fuels this work.
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