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Friday, August 29, 2008

Next Generation House - Sou Fujimoto Architects



Check out the Next Generation House by Sou Fujimoto Architects. It's like a house built with Jenga blocks. The NGH is a small weekend house that overlooks the River Kuma in Kumakura, Japan. It's approximately a 13'x13'x13' cube, which makes it smaller than our apartment here in NYC, but way more functional due to the ramshackle space that is formed by the cedar logs, creating spaces for seating, sleeping, eating, storage, etc. I appreciate the simplicity of the idea and the rigor with which they carried it out.



Via Judit Bellostes. Photographs by Iwan Baan.

23 comments:

  1. Love it!!!!! SO....natural?

    what about rain...? :)

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  2. I think there's glass on the top :)

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  3. Cool except that there's about 50% chance that you will bump your head every move..

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  4. Oooo... No Feng Shui! Bad.

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  5. what about a matrass
    sleeping on a solid wooden block can't be good for your back

    sitting on it all day can't be good for your ass either

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  6. kitchen, bathrom, furniture... no?

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  7. next generation house? Seriously you architects need to pull your heads out of your pretentious asses. This is so not a practical design and its a waste of, albiet natural, material. Cedar? well if your posh and could afford to make a house that, for the life of me cannot figure out why, is not enclosed. Doesnt this defeat the purpose of a dwelling? is it not supposed to shelter you?

    Call it what it is, a curiosity at best, but a next gen house? The blogger is too dumb to live and I predict will end up as a winning contestant at darwinawards.com

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  8. Anon #2 - The house is fully enclosed - there is glass in the openings on all exposed sides of the building. The NGH isn't meant to be a full time residence - it's a weekend house, and I can imagine coming out here to basically set up camp in nicer quarters than just a tent.

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  9. what about "function"?

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  10. what about form?

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  11. I think it's both formal and functional - its exterior space is kept within the confines of the cube, and the interior space is rigorously derived from the placement of the blocks of wood. It's functional in the sense that the form (derived by the placement of the blocks of wood) identifies spaces for storage, for sitting, for sleeping, for eating, for reading, etc. It's not an every day home, but I do think it's successful both functionally and formally.

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  12. Are you kidding me?! In no way is this functional. Let me repeat. IN NO WAY IS THIS FUNTIONAL. It looks neat for a kid to hang out in for awhile. But that thrill will be gone when you have to rush him to the hospital for slamming his head into one of the 300 sharp wooden corners. People try too damn hard to be artistic.

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  13. Well, rule out visits from anyone who is not young and fit: no disabled friends, no-one who needs a walking stick, probably no blind people. No-one who broke their leg while skiing. No wheelchair athletes. But hey! Who needs to talk with a person who is not young, fit, rich and beautiful?

    Jugend uber alles!

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  14. It has not form nor function... and he meant form as in looks not as in un-casual. Next time say Algor invented, instant following.

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  15. we could call these amazing constructions cabins...but houses is pushing it. I enjoy the smooth wood aesthetic and the niches and groves that the materials and their placements provide. It is looking to the future.

    think of the future
    futureclaw
    www.futureclaw.com

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  16. I'd love one covered in cusions and with glass in it! =O

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  17. That was an amazing place to stay its alot more different that a room.

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  18. Interesting space, but not a place for living. Pile of timber for me.

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  19. haha
    its not a house in the traditional sense you all think of it as. The traditional house was developed to get the "unsocialised" into a more "decent" living condition where parents and children were given separate sleeping spaces and then came together in a common living room. It was for those who lived in essentially rabbit warrens with no sense of "privacy" or "decency" where sex happened in the same room that 6 other children slept together on the floor...

    This "house" brings about a challenge of those ideas. You dont see it as a house because it is not as you have of your preconceived ideas of what a house is. This space provides all the basic spaces needed for living; somewhere to sleep, somewhere to eat, somewhere to gather in a common place, it just does so in a manner you cannot understand.

    As for form and function, its a brilliant demonstration of how different spaces can be arranged on the inside to create one whole on the outside. Something that looks like a complete building from the outside with such a complex interior organisation is a difficult thing to achieve. It could have looked like a jumble of timber on the outside, but no one would have applauded Fujimoto for his initiative of collaborating such a design.

    Think of this builing, not so much as a "house" you would inhabit, but a space that provides an argument about how housing is and what its potential is.

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  20. and you know what i found... if you actually take a look at the drawings for the house... it has a fully functional bathroom, kitchen and bedrooms...

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  21. I like the cool block on block look, but like the previous poster, I wonder about how you set up mattress, cushions, etc.

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