Roof on the Hill

This is a residential house located in a new development site in Takarazuka, Japan.
Because of the solid nature of the ground, we decided to make a building only by 
putting a roof over the sloped terrain without modifying it.

The house, spread on the terraced ground, has a light steel frame of 3m x 3m. 
It consists of boxes, including a bedroom, a children's room and a bathroom, and 
a void generated by the subtraction of the boxes. On top of them is an undulating 
roof, whose slits allow sunlight to diffuse into the entire interior space.

The interior space is affected by multiple parameters, or the interactions among 
them. Those parameters are concerned with direction and scale. As for direction, 
the interaction among the sloped ground, the grid of columns, and the inclined 
undulating roof of 45 degrees gives the interior a mixed character of order and
variation. Furthermore, multiple scales have an influence on the space thus 
created. The three-meter interval of the grid, the 800mm difference in level of 
the floor, and the 300mm height of the roof aperture are combined to create 
both consistency and heterogeneity in the interior space. 

The relationships among different elements compose the simultaneously open 
and intimate space, like Italian mountain villages, like an interstitial space 
between buildings.