Tree-ness House / Akihisa Hirata


© Vincent Hecht

© Vincent Hecht
  • Architects: Akihisa Hirata
  • Location: Toshima, Japan
  • Project Architect: Yuko Tonogi
  • Design Team: Kohei Oba , Masatoshi Sugiyama
  • Area: 331.38 m2
  • Project Year: 2017
  • Photographs: Vincent Hecht
  • Structural Engineer: Masato Araya (OAK), Takashi Manda (tmsd), Taijiro Kato (tmsd)
  • Facility Engineer: Kazuhiro Endo, Sho Takahashi (EOS plus)
  • Planting Designer: Yuichi Tsukada (Onshitsu)
  • Textile Designer: Yoko Ando, Kasumi Yamaguchi (Yoko Ando Design)
  • Construction: Akira Ohara, Satoshi Kikuchi (Oharakomusho)
  • Planting Construction: Yasuyuki Ikegami (Ikegami)

© Vincent Hecht

© Vincent Hecht

Text description provided by the architects. This project is a complex building of houses and galleries built in Tokyo, Toshimaku. One tree is organically integrated with a combination of parts having different characteristics, such as a trunk, a branch, and a leaf.  As with the tree, we tried to create an organic architecture that could be formed by a hierarchical combination of different parts such as plants/pleats (as openings) / concrete boxes.


© Vincent Hecht

© Vincent Hecht

Plants - Diagram

Plants – Diagram

© Vincent Hecht

© Vincent Hecht

While concrete boxes are stacked three-dimensionally, the main structure containing complicated voids is made. Then, open the windows with pleats in them, agitating the inside and outside, and at the same time create a place that fits with the physical sensation of the person. In addition, we set up planting around the pleats and create an organic whole like breathing in the surrounding environment like a tree.


© Vincent Hecht

© Vincent Hecht

We set up a calm environment such as bedrooms and a gallery inside of the box. On the other hand, the outside of the box becomes terraces, gardens, and the place surrounded by glass as the living room and dining room. Rather than focusing only the internal space of the building, the entire space including the external space like the garden and the street is three-dimensionalized.  I intended to create a futuristic and savage architecture that awakens human animal instincts in which the inside and outside are reversed multiple times. 


© Vincent Hecht

© Vincent Hecht

Pleats - Concept Diagram

Pleats – Concept Diagram

© Vincent Hecht

© Vincent Hecht