Project: Hilltop House
Architects: FORM | Kouichi Kimura Architects
Location: Japan
Area: 2,497 sf
Year: 2022
Photographs by: Norihito Yamauchi
Hilltop House by FORM | Kouichi Kimura Architects
FORM | Kouichi Kimura Architects have designed a brand new residence on top of a hill at the foot of a mountain. Called the Hilltop House, this contemporary dwelling offers just shy of 2,500 square feet of living spaces. Its elevated location provides beautiful panoramic vies of the surrounding mountains.
The house has been built on top of a hill that was generated during land development at the foot of the mountain. The housing site occupies about 830 m2 and is situated in a location with nice panoramic views of nearby mountains. The approach that looks like a forest path branches off from a road at the foot of the hill and leads to the house entrance.
The client requested to create extraordinariness in everyday living while making the best use of the location. We then planned a courtyard house that faces open towards the mountains as a borrowed scenery. The building is composed of a horizontally emphasized voluminous shape and a wall surrounding the courtyard. The height of the wall has been determined to view great mountain ridges from the rooms. It has been designed to be integrated into the building, which has created a beautiful skyline, making itself part of the new scenery and raising further the scenic value that resides in the location.
The graveled courtyard that has no planting has been designed to be a blank space. With the background landscape as the borrowed scenery, it makes you feel an extended tranquil space. To produce extraordinariness, a space under the eaves has been designed to provide a water basin facing the courtyard and a room. Visually connecting inside with outside, it appears differently every second and thus is used as a gallery. The landscape reflected in the water and/or light and shade, together with the objects placed there, creates delicate scenes. The independent partition wall that catches eyes from inside the room disperses light from the skylight, making the space more impressive. The bench, wall, and ceiling are continued beyond the glass partition that separates inside from outside. They create depth in the scene and produce flows between inside and outside.
The building takes in landscapes and the external environment. Each individual room utilizes clear sightlines and natural light, creating a continuous space while loosely segmented. The house appears tranquil, but the fluid will continue to produce fresh and extraordinary space experiences in daily life.
