Kraft Architects clads minimalist Japanese home with corrugated steel

Corrugated metal cloaks the long, narrow form of An Unfinished House, a minimalist house in Japan designed by Tokyo studio Kraft Architects.

Located on a leftover plot in the suburbs of Isesaki City, Gunma Prefecture, the home was created for the family of a local carpenter, who worked closely with Kraft Architects to design and build its timber-framed structure.

Kraft Architects made a feature of the long, narrow site, organising the home as a sequence of rooms that lead seamlessly into one another, lined with full-height vertical windows on either side.

“The site is characterised by clearly articulated yet overlapping scales – residential neighbourhoods, farmland and distant mountains – forming a layered environment,” lead architects Atsushi Nakamura and Hirari Sato told Dezeen.

“The elongated volume is placed horizontally to engage these layered views, allowing everyday life to unfold alongside shifting fragments of scenery,” they added.

“Rather than fixed rooms, spatial meaning emerges through movement, light and daily behaviour.”

The route through An Unfinished House, dubbed the “Axis of Life” by the studio, begins to the west with a sheltered terrace that was informed by a traditional doma – a semi-outdoor space for tasks that might make the interior of the home dirty.

The entrance leads from a tatami room, through a central living, kitchen and dining room before ending with the children’s space and main bedroom to the east.

In the centre of An Unfinished House, a pantry and bathrooms occupy pods on either side of the main axis, creating a narrower, corridor-like threshold between the living and bedroom spaces.

In the larger rooms, exposed timber columns act as “subtle anchors”.

“A series of structural columns operates as an architectural device that organises relationships rather than defining hierarchy,” said Nakamura and Sato.

“Positioned at key intersections, they act as subtle anchors that temporarily stabilise family relationships while allowing multiple centres of gravity to coexist within the space.”

The exterior of An Unfinished House was clad entirely in corrugated galvalume steel panels, selected for the way they softly reflect the light of the surrounding farmland.

Its roof extends into deep eaves, shading both the rows of large windows on each side of the home and a gravel pathway around its perimeter.

Elsewhere in Japan, architecture studio Permanent recently completed an office building on a similarly long, narrow site alongside farmland, topped by a wavy corrugated metal roof informed by the swaying of rice crops in the breeze.

Other Japanese homes recently featured on Dezeen include a residence with an extension streaked with clay and House in Nakano, which is fronted by a metal terrace for potted plants.

The photography is by Takuya Seki.

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