W-Window House, Part 2: Exterior + Plans

The footprint of W-Window House is approximately 320 square feet (30 square meter). What is slightly unusual about the house is that the entrance doesn’t have a “tataki,” the concrete floor at the entrance which is normally one step lower than the rest of the floors in Japanese houses or apartments. The tataki is where you take off your shoes upon entering a house or an apartment in Japan.

In W-Window House, the entire ground floor is covered with concrete (as shown in our previous post) and is the area to keep shoes on. This design of the floor may be attributed to the fact that eliminating the tataki area would save extra flat-floor space, but it made sense to me when Kentaro Takeguchi, one of the architects at Alphaville, told me that he was interested in blurring the line between commercial and residential architecture. As a matter of fact, the building could be easily converted to commercial purposes, and floors on the higher levels can be extended because of the generous ceiling height which measures approximately 12 feet on each floor except for the top floor.

photos: © Kei Sugino

Below are the designs and plans of the house.

As evident on the plans, the windows are set in a V shaped groove which runs vertically on each side of the building. The V grooves create small triangular patios at the bottom of the building. This “waist” of the building and the views from the windows accentuate and bring much more depth to the space.