Japanese architecture office Case-Real has completed a house on a compact site in Tokyo featuring galvanised steel cladding and a concealed rooftop terrace.
Case-Real, a studio headed by Koichi Futatusmata and Yuki Ohnita, designed the two-storey residence to make optimal use of a 148-square-metre site in a quiet residential area of the city's Higashi-Gotanda district.
Above: House in Higashi-Gotanda is located on a quiet residential site in Tokyo. Top image: it is clad almost entirely in galvanised steel
The timber-framed building is mostly covered in panels of hot-dipped galvanised steel to give it a sense of mass and solidity and a uniform appearance.
The same material is applied to the garage shutters and louvres flanking its top-floor terrace. The home's cladding is designed to give a sense of mass and solidity
"During the day, the exterior wall reflects the surrounding green and artefacts, but at the night it gives a different expression," the architecture studio explained.
"We aimed to create an architecture that allows you to enjoy the changes in texture and the ageing of materials gradually changing with time."
House in Higashi-Gotanda incorporates a hidden terrace
House in Higashi-Gotanda is flanked by a low-rise apartment building and another property of a similar height, so a key challenge was finding a way to provide the lower storey with natural light.
Case-Real inserted a terrace on the upper level that functions like a light well, enablin...