“Share House” is the name the architects Satoko Shinohara and Ayano Uchimura have given their experimental housing project in Tokyo, a scheme they not only designed and implemented, but which they also administer. The original idea came from Kengo Kuma, who has long grappled with social developments in Japan and who commissioned the present project. More than 50 per cent of the population in Tokyo live in single-household dwellings – in tiny apartments for which they pay incredibly high rents. As an alternative, Kuma offers a form of housing that is perhaps somewhat exotic and quite unusual for Japan – a house used on a communal basis where people can live and work. Seven individual rooms provide private realms of a kind for the tenants, who, on the other hand, have to share two sanitary spaces.
Other communal areas, like the ground-floor workshop, the kitchen and living room on the second floor and the roof terrace with a herb garden, are spatially relatively generous. Within the roughly 10-metre-high cubic volume of the building, the individual spaces are stacked on three levels and linked to form units. Located between these are varied lounge areas with different room heights and visual relationships. The ceilings, walls and floors are uniformly clad with larch plywood, and every recess is used to accommodate shelving and inbuilt elements. The workshop plays a central role in the house. Here, the furnishings were designed and constructed by the residents, and the space links the interior with the street in this quiet residential neighbourhood. The two are separated simply by a polyester membrane, which forms a translucent outer skin. Not unlike entering a tent, residents open the membrane by means of a zip to gain direct access to the house.
Other communal areas, like the ground-floor workshop, the kitchen and living room on the second floor and the roof terrace with a herb garden, are spatially relatively generous. Within the roughly 10-metre-high cubic volume of the building, the individual spaces are stacked on three levels and linked to form units. Located between these are varied lounge areas with different room heights and visual relationships. The ceilings, walls and floors are uniformly clad with larch plywood, and every recess is used to accommodate shelving and inbuilt elements. The workshop plays a central role in the house. Here, the furnishings were designed and constructed by the residents, and the space links the interior with the street in this quiet residential neighbourhood. The two are separated simply by a polyester membrane, which forms a translucent outer skin. Not unlike entering a tent, residents open the membrane by means of a zip to gain direct access to the house.