Nora House_Atelier Bow-Wow
| May 28th, 2008You never know what you will get when you walk into a newsstand inside the airport. What I get is this house in Architectural Record, April issue “Record Houses 2008″. Nora House situates on the suburban-agricultural site of Sendai. What I like about this house is the roof design and the openness of the interior.
Roof Dynamics
It seems that traditional Japanese and Chinese architecture both celebrate the roof of the house through repetition. The roofscape remains unchanged for thousands of years. What does modern architecture do to the roof of Japanese or Chinese single family house? Almost nothing. The reason lies to the nature of the roof as water draining device and as the cultural symbol to society. The roof of the Nora House is a success in that it incorporates the sustainable design (stack effect) into the modernization of the traditional roofscape and made a change.
Space Definition
The House inherits the idea of fluid interior space from the historic minka farmhouses. When a house requires openness, how do you define each space according to its use? Atelier Bow-Wow answered this question perfectly by providing elevation changes. In this house there are nine levels, each level defines a special use. Except necessary walls function as lateral bracing，the house is free from interior partitions.
Here is a new book on Atelier Bow-Wow.
Above Images are from Architectural Record Website.