Murakoshi

House for S Design Farm

An urban house integrating floodwaters into its design. This house with a monolithic facade and a drive-through garage with a high foundation is situated on a pentagonal corner lot that is expected to be crowded with pedestrians. The design features a planar and cross-sectional openness to allow light and wind to flow into the interior while also taking into account the convenience of people and cars while deflecting water. This work explores a simple and sensible approach to future urban housing with a focus on natural disasters.

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Murakoshi by Hiroki Watanabe

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House by Hiroki Watanabe

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Hiroki Watanabe Murakoshi

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Hiroki Watanabe House

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Hiroki Watanabe Designer Portrait Photo

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Murakoshi House Press Releases

Press releases for Murakoshi are now accessible in these languages: English.

Murakoshi House Translations

Delighted to offer translations for Murakoshi projects in a variety of languages: အိမ် MY, Nyumba NY, 房子 ZY, Taigh GD, სახლი KA, 家は JA, Inzu RW, ເຮືອນ LO, Trano MG, House EN.

Murakoshi House Media Articles

Explore our ready-to-use articles on Murakoshi, available in multiple languages: Italian, English, Hindi, Korean, Indonesian, Japanese, Russian, Chinese (Mandarin), French, Portuguese, German, Spanish, Turkish, Arabic (Standard) and Dutch, for your feature stories.

Unique Properties

An urban house integrating flood waters into its design. The house, with its drive-through garage using a high foundation and monolithic facade that takes into account sight lines and sound, was designed to achieve safety and comfort for the client while creating a duality of open public and introverted private living spaces that maintain an appropriate sense of distance from the surrounding environment. This work explores a simple, yet make sense, future urban housing with an eye toward natural disasters.

Tags

House, Urban, Flood waters, High foundation, Openness, Safety

Production Technology

In order to maximize the building-to-land ratio, a pentagonal plan configuration was chosen to match the site shape, and the cross-sectional configuration of the second floor and loft was selected in consideration of height restrictions, fire prevention regulations, and structural planning. To minimize the impact on the building in the event of flooding, the first floor was planned with a high foundation. The space was designed to make the most of the site conditions.

Design Challenge

The Murakoshi House faced the challenge of how to create a safe and comfortable place to live, given its low elevation, the risk of flooding due to its location in a valley, and the dense surrounding area. Considering the effects of recent climate change and rising electricity costs, the key point was how to create comfort, and architectural innovations and facilities were planned to withstand these factors.

Project Duration

The design period for the Murakoshi House is six months, from November 2020 to April 2021. The construction period is seven months, from May 2021 to December 2021. The planned site is located in Ota Ward, Tokyo, Japan. It is located on the bottom of a mortar-shaped valley that stretches to the south of Senzoku Ike Pond.

Operation Flow

Murakoshi House faced the challenge of how to create a safe and comfortable place to live, given its low elevation, the risk of flooding in the valley, and the densely populated surrounding area. In addition, taking into consideration the effects of recent climate change and rising electricity costs, the key point was how to create comfort, and architectural innovations and facilities were planned to withstand these factors.

Research

In order to reduce running costs and the burden on the global environment, the insulation performance was set to a high level (insulation grade 6), and a level of almost no heating was implemented even in winter by minimizing the number of windows, using a Ua value of 0.37, using heat exchange ductless ventilation, and thorough air sealing measures.

Inspiration

Safety and Comfort from Openness. The site is a pentagonal shaped site facing a three-way street with a lot of pedestrian and vehicular traffic, and adjacent to a waterway that was predicted to flood, making it a complex intersection of various elements. Therefore, we created a three-dimensional openness to the elements of light, wind, people, cars, and water that surround the site, allowing light and wind to flow into the interior and creating an architecture that dodges water while considering convenience for people and cars.

Image Credits

Image #1: Photographer Yasutaka Kojima, Variations, 2022. Image #2: Photographer Koichi Torimura, Variations, 2022. Image #3: Photographer Yasutaka Kojima, Variations, 2022. Image #4: Photographer Yasutaka Kojima, Variations, 2022. Image #5: Photographer Koichi Torimura, Variations, 2022.

Project Overview

Murakoshi House has been a Silver winner in the Architecture, Building and Structure Design award category in the year 2022 organized by the prestigious A' Design Award & Competition. The Silver A' Design Award celebrates top-tier designs that embody excellence and innovation. This award acknowledges creations that are not only aesthetically pleasing but also highly functional, reflecting the designer's deep understanding and skill. Silver A' Design Award recipients are recognized for their contribution to raising industry standards and advancing the practice of design. Their work often incorporates original innovations and elicits a strong emotional response, making a notable impact on the improvement of everyday life.

Silver Recognition

Hiroki Watanabe was recognized with the coveted Silver A' Design Award in 2023, a testament to excellence of their work Murakoshi House.

Hiroki Watanabe Press Releases

We provide a series of press releases on Hiroki Watanabe that journalists and press members can freely incorporate into their narratives. Now available: Immediate access to 1 press releases for journalists.

Murakoshi: A Unique Urban House Design Integrating Flood Waters

Hiroki Watanabe's Murakoshi House: A Safe and Comfortable Urban House Design

Hiroki Watanabe Newsroom

Discover outstanding design and award-winning initiatives in the Hiroki Watanabe Newsroom.