This is a mountain retreat built in at the foot of Mt. Yatsugatake in Nagano Prefecture. Each room sits independently upon the deck, and appears to be just like massive supports holding up a great roof. There are no unexpected visitors at this place - it is not bothered by newspaper distributors or postmen or salesmen. It is a place completely isolated from the outside world. For example, even if we assume in general that the characteristics of various rooms are determined in response to their connection to the outside world, here there is no place that serves as an exterior; so it then becomes possible to aim to create a homogenous place, and treat the rooms as purely interior things within it. It wouldn’t matter whether the rooms were connected to each other or individually separated. By deliberately disregarding relationships between each room, we tried to clarify each individual function. Various functions of domestic living were scattered around under the great roof, and named “the room with the kitchen”, “the room with the bed”, and so on. For the Yamakawa Villa, as with the other projects of that time - the “Kubota House”, the “Ishii House”, and the “Shindo House” - our interest laid in the plan only.
		Yamakawa Villa (1976-1977) location: Yatsugatake, Nagano Prefecture principal use: weekend house site area: 1,050.11m2 building area: 168.18m2 total floor area: 68.18m2 structure: wood; 1 story maximum height: 3,697mm architects: Riken Yamamoto & Field Shop general contractors: Seibu Urban Development completion date: October, 1977 next back top