House in Nakameguro: LEVEL Architects

© LEVEL Architects
 
 
We asked the architects what the biggest challenge was to design this house with a slide — or more precisely, ‘the slide house’.

“When we first met our client, their foremost request was to have a slide included in the design,” says Kazuki Nakamura, co-founder of LEVEL Architects in Tokyo.

“The biggest challenge was to integrate the slide into architecture without making it look like a playground equipment in the space.”

Kenichi Izuhara, the other co-founder of the firm, explains their solution was to wrap the house with staircases and a corridor on one side, and the slide on the other side. The stairs and slide form a big ring-like passage around the central space of the house. The stairs runs up from the ground floor to the third floor, and then the slide continues down to the first floor.

“We spent a lot of time trying to figure out the right angle of the slope, best materials for the slide and the ideal construction method of the curved corners where the wall had to be reinforced.”
 

Photos courtesy of LEVEL Architects (Photographer © Shinichi Tanaka)
 
^Who: LEVEL Architects
^What: Single family residence
^Where: Meguro-ku, Tokyo, Japan
^When: May 2009
^How: Three-story wood frame construction
^{Site Area:} 1,182 square feet (109.82m²)
^{Total Floor Area:} 1,762 square feet (163.69m²)
 
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