June 2017

London UK

A flat where I currently live in London has a beautiful view from the window in the living room. As the flat is located at the end of a curved street juxtaposed with a square street. We can share a view of the large private garden with the neighbors. The size of the garden is valuable in central London. Although we do not have an access to the large garden, the only view from the window makes myself feel comfortable and calm in the middle of a busy city. Why was this street designed to be curved? Until 1974, the block where the flat stands used to be a private garden owned by one person, then it was decided to to be developed as a residential area due to high demand in central London. A curved path located in the garden was converted into a street and most trees in the garden were kept in a private garden owned by the new flats.

In comparison, the land of the house I grew up in Tokyo used to be owned by a temple in 1740 with a beautiful landscape. Then, due to high density of the population in Tokyo, the land was divided into small lots of residential area without keeping any trees or a garden area.

The house is constructed equally setting back from boundary and high boundary walls were constructed to keep its privacy. As a result, we own a decent size of a private garden with highly protected privacy. However, the house does not achieve a view of sizable area of the shared garden.

Both cities have a lot of similarities; in particular, both cities are highly populated by young professionals. Based on the comparison between houses in Tokyo and London, this project explores a facade system which maximizes openness with the view of a shared back garden between subdivided small flats and preserving privacy.

The facade is made of two layers of screens. The first layer is made of wooden poles adjacent to functional windows. An occupier is able to slide the wooden poles vertically and horizontally. The occupier can enlarge or shrink the open area of the window. The second layer is a screen made of frosted acrylic bars which change their direction up to 90 degrees. When the bar is parallel to the facade, it becomes a frosted screen. When its perpendicular to the facade, the screen becomes transparent as the depth of bars is very thin. Each flat has a “Target Area” on the wall of the opposite building. The screen can adjust itself to ensure privacy is upheld by blocking the view of sights outside of the target area. By utilizing this system, users can maximise openness of the flat without worrying forsaking privacy of their flat.