House in Karuizawa

Karuizawa, Chubu Region, Japan, 2009

From Pure Form to Adaptive Formation

The clients challenged FBA with a very straightforward brief:

“We are going to hop on a train out of Tokyo and after 45 minutes, all we want to see is greenery.”

The other challenge was the site: Almost disturbingly beautiful. Over 5,000 square metres on the top of a hill sloping down to a creek with a protected park on the other side of that creek. This was the outset for strategies of a summer residence where the vegetation becomes the building.

FBA proposed an almost invisible building that lets the forest and greenery be the protagonist.

The site is accessed at its highest point, a plateau with beautiful tall trees. As the building hides behind that plateau, in the slope that leads down to the water, one is greeted by a pristine forest.

It is only when walking along a path that leads down the slope that the House in Karuizawa begins to appear. What at first seems to be a simple rectangular volume opens up in ‘petals’ following the site’s curved contours. The ‘petals’ thus generated become individual rooms, held together by a spinal hall and separated by green walls: the greenery growing between them.