Cottage in Fujimi -00 cabin, woods, landscape (Yatsugatake, Fujimi, Nagano, Japan) Daigo Ishii + Future-scape Architects

42 sq.m.
452 sq.ft.

The famous villa area in the larch woods of highlands with quiet and refined villas.
The owner required the low-cost house where it’s cool in the summer when they
stay mainly. In the winter, sometimes they may use for skiing.

The cottage with winter space and summer space. The winter space is an ordinary indoor space. While, the summer space is an interior-like terrace due to the reduction of cost.

The only one side of the terrace is opened to the woods, covered with a mosquito net and a glass window in part. In the summer, the terrace is used as an extension of indoor life spaces, spreading their life domain at the maximum.

While, in the winter, the glass door between both spaces is closed. Translucent polycarbonate board is inserted in front of the mosquito net so that it would interrupt the cold from the outside. The summer space becomes a buffer zone between the outside and the winter space.

Between both seasons, the size of the life domain contracts as changing clothes, and the scene from the interior is also changed: not only from green to snow but also from entire clearness to mutual clearness and vagueness by polycarbonate.In the summer ,the summer space with typical local color is continuous to the dark woods. In the winter, the winter space in white is connected with the white landscape. In the small house, I thought, such changes become creating a spread.

The materials of the exterior were selected out of the vernacular vocabulary. It is a consideration to the environment. But, since it is designed a little more simply than surrounding, the exterior feature seems to be different somewhere, in the degree that nobody feels sense of discomfort or discontinuity.

Loaction : Yatsugatake, Fujimi, Nagano, Japan

Architect : Daigo Ishii + Future-scape Architects

It is located in the forest.

Behind the opening in which the glass and mosquito screen, and polycarbonate plate for the winter are layered, there is a terrace as a summer space, and behind that is the living area as a winter space.

The floor is floating above the ground to avoid moisture. An approach to go up there is the slope on the right hand.

The materials that are often seen in this villa, such as a wooden wall and a garvanized steel roof are used on the exterior appearance. Acoording to that effect, this architecture continues to the scenery of the villa district.

The diagram shows the difference between the summer and winter by properly using the summer space and the winter space. In the summer, the area for living is wider by using the summer space and the winter space space with a wide area, meanwhile, in the winter, residents only use the winter space.

The state of the opening on the south side. In the summer, only glass windows and mosquito screens are fitted, and in the winter, twin polycarbonate plates are fitted behind the mosquito screens.

See the exterior on the north side. Light enters through a narrow high window.

The exterior appearance that the transparent window glass part and the mosquito screen part repeat with rhythm.

The state where the roof is covered and the state where the roof is removed to see the summer space and the winter space.