YamamuraSanzLaviñaArchitects

(English bellow)

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“Home Around the Forest” is a weekend house in Karuizawa for a couple with two children living in central Tokyo. The family was familiar with the area, and they stayed many holidays in hotels nearby. Finally, they decided that they wanted their own hotel room in the forest, a 70sqm suite for a family of four to make the most of their holidays.

In YSLA we wanted to maximize the time quality that the family would spend in the house. For this, we needed them to slow down from the city life and reconnect with nature so they could unplug from technology. We fancy them to feel wide, feel better, to live around the forest, taking in its atmosphere. It’s known that walking around the forest can upgrade creativity, boost immunity, and diminish stress in other words; it helps you to achieve the Latin proverb “a healthy mind in a healthy body”.

To achieve this connection, we build a 70sqm house around the forest, a house in which its corridor extends to the forest and embrace it as an extension. The forest became part of the living room; the line between interior and exterior became inexistant we can then feel wide, feel better.  The family can enjoy the totality of its nature, they can walk, run, bike, or as my soon did practice ball control. At the end of their holidays the family can go back to Tokyo feeling they had a healthy, balanced, and full of happiness days together.

 

Project Credits:

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Architecture & Interior coordination: YSLA architects

Contractor: DK Kensetsu

Structure engineer: yAt Structure Design Office

Photography: @Munetaka Onodera 

Lighting: Daisuki Lighting

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