Villa T

When we go there together, it turns out that he managed to get over six thousand square meters of a mountain slope on the Izu Peninsula. Funnily, Kamakura, where the project had begun, is faintly visible in the far distance when the sky is clear. Which, however, is only about half of the year.

VISIBILITY I

When the road began to wind up and I thought I’d finally reached Amagi Pass, the rain came rushing toward me from the foot of the mountain touching the dense cedar forest white.
—Yasunari Kawabata, The Izu Dancer (Izu no Odoriko)

As if to prove the meteorological statistics, our first two visits are entirely different experiences.
We are in the Amagi Highlands, about 900 metres above sea level. At the end of a curvy drive through a mountain forest, we find the access to the site on its highest point along the road demarcating its southwestern boundary — after having inadvertently passed its northeastern boundary, 34 metres below.
As we walk down a narrow path, we reach an opening which a previous owner has cut in the centre of the site. No cloud in the sky. The views are breathtaking. In the centre of a 120-degree panorama are two mountains: Mount Yahazu and, slightly to the right, Mount Omuro, famous for being shaved by ritual burnings every year since the 14th century. In the far distance, the Kanto plain and the Pacific.
When we go there the next time a few weeks later, we can hardly find the site. Once we stumble upon what we know to be the panoramic opening, there is neither panorama nor opening. Even the closest trees cannot be seen. The foggy air is tangible. Knowing that all is there somewhere in that thick grey, is it even more beautiful than last time?

INSIDE THE OUTSIDE

The client is a spartan art collector. The largest piece of art he has just purchased is around us: An ever-changing background of nature. All architecture has to do here is to embrace the surroundings whilst protecting from the elements and the slope.
The choice of this site underlines what he has long conveyed: he craves the outside. In fact, he seems to want to live inside the outside. As our discussions progress, we conclude that the brief for the program is consequently simple: Not “separate rooms in a closed house” but a fluid, “open space embedded in nature”.

ROCK-ROOF

We propose a “rock-roof hybrid”. As if someone had carved the inside of a large rock and for some reason meticulously chiseled its top into an archetypical roof, Villa T is both open and solid at the same time.
The roof’s shape follows both local regulations stipulating a pitched roof and the natural slope of the site. In a strange way, the two sides of the pitch make the house seem part of the mountain yet stand out.

VISIBILITY II

From both roads, nothing of Villa T is visible. The access to the site is from the highest point in the south. As we walk down the narrow path, glimpses through the foliage reveal more and more of the roof until its stoney surface becomes tangible.
The path leads us around it. What appeared like a large solid rock is actually completely hollow, its inside one contiguous space dyed white, structured softly by thin walls which do not reach the ceiling but are merely continuing the before-behind play of the forest around us.
Standing inside the carved-out rock emphasises the endless lightness outside. Perhaps even more when all is immersed in mysterious mist.