Windows of various shapes and sizes give this weekend retreat on the south-east coast of Japan the appearance of a children's shape-sorter toy.
Designed by Tokyo studio Yasutaka Yoshimura Architects, Nowhere but Sajima forms part of the Nowhere Resort, a series of weekly rentable holiday homes on the Miura peninsula of Kanagawa Prefecture.
The house is located on the harbour of a small fishing village. It has a triangular plan, with rooms on three storeys.
Each of the windows lines up with a different room and the ceiling of every room follows the profile of its window.
The architects describe the rooms as "thin tube-like spaces" with views directed towards the ocean. "We have created a place reminiscent of looking out to sea from the deck of a ship," they explain.
Sliding doors and screens allow different rooms to open out to one another, plus a circular cutaway provides views between the first-floor study and the storey above.
See more holiday homes on Dezeen, including a set of apartments above a yacht house on the Crimean coastline and a weekend fishing retreat in Germany.
Here are more details from Yasutaka Yoshimura Architects:
Nowhere but Sajima
Cutting resort environment out of urban environment
Nowhere resort is the resort program that is renting out weekly vacation house. Suggesting new urban lifestyle by making shorter the distance to weekend house from standard 3 hours up to 1 hour. The environment must get close to urban when shorten the distance, the issue comes to how to cut off resort environment out of there. Therefore Nowhere but Sajima comes to build long and thin tube-like spaces that bundle them into one home unit. The tube-like spaces are facing toward the ocean and at the same time intercept the sight from the next condominium. The building is controlling both privacy and scenery.
A home for guests
Nowhere but Sajima provides a temporary 'home' for its guests. The weekly rental service provided by Nowhere Resort is a relatively new method of operating resort properties in Japan, and allows different tenants the opportunity to inhabit a 'home' on a weekly basis. While the weekly term is short compared to a standard monthly rental and long compared to a hotel stay, this in-between length accommodates a new diversity of uses of a 'home'. Serving as a space for exhibitions, as a classroom or for wedding parties, the unit easily adapts to the imagination and invention of the tenant and in doing so also re-defines the range of activities that can take place in the 'home'. As well as accommodating the functions of work and business, the 'home' again becomes the space of many life events beside the basic function of 'inhabitance'. In acquiring a new program for use, the 'home' regains the richness of activity that can take place all around of life.
The building, a triangular block composed of tube-like volumes heading to the ocean, stands on a point of reclaimed land in a small fishing village. While the site meets the seawall and directly faces the sea, it is also faces other buildings across the water. To provide adequate privacy without the use of curtains, narrow tube-shaped spaces were bundled together and angled to provide openings toward the sea. The orientation of these tubes naturally blocks the line of sight from the adjacent apartments and while gazing down the length of the tube from inside only the ocean can be seen. While providing an escape from the tide of urbanism characterising what we normally call a 'resort', the design still maintains the key aspects of the resort experience. We have created a place reminiscent of looking out to sea from the deck of a ship.
Location: Yokosuka Kanagawa, JAPAN
Principal Use: HouseStructure: RC 3 stories
Site Area: 132.09 sq.m
Building Area: 63.88 sq.m
Total Floor Area: 176.65 sq.m
Max Height: 9,459 mm
Architect: Yasutaka Yoshimura Architects
Client: Nowhere resort
Structural Engineer: Akira Suzuki/ASA
Services: EOS+
Electric Services: comodo
General Contractor: Heisei Construction
