beta – creative collective – beta
KUMANO HOUSE
NISHIKICHO, JAPAN
34°14’19.75″N 131°57’32.90″Ø
Ba. 5. Semester 2019
Kumano House, is a project located in the Yamaguchi prefecture of southern Japan. Here between the mountains and along Nishikigawa, lays the town of Hirose a little gem in the Japanese mountains. Hirose is a small town divided into four areas. Ohtani, Koshoge, Sakuragi and Obustu-tani, these four areas are surrounded by nature, Hirose is facing a big problem, in the form of a huge outward migration with an increasing burden on the town with just the elderly surviving. A problem that has left the city with 30% of its houses abandoned and left to decay. Which has resulted in the otherwise idyllic town standing empty and the old beautiful thatched houses dilapidated.
A 20-minute drive from the city, along one of the tributaries (Sakuragigawa) of a winding road through the dense pine forest, lies the southernmost valley of Obustu-tani. A quiet valley with very few inhabited houses and architecture bearing the stamp of the valley’s constant wind directions. The first thing you meet when you come out of the dense forest is Kumano House, two dilapidated houses on top of 3 overgrown rice field terraces with the river as the dividing line between road and site. A small wedge that opens up, with the dense forests rising up from the mountainsides on both sides. The Kumano House is based on the already exciting buildings with belonging rice field terraces. The project focuses on preserving as much as possible of the exciting structures on the site to renovate, restore and build around and frame the old local Japanese building tradition.
The exciting house has been abandoned years ago, now with the structure beginning to collapse. During the work with Kumano House, the abandoned house where cleared out of every personal artifacts When the House where cleared out a very thorough measuring of all of the exciting structure where made.
The structure was re-constructed in 3D where the new building is created with inspiration in the old. The transformation restoration focuses on keeping and exposing the beautiful traditional Japansese wooden structure by building the new Kumano House around the old structure and giving it new life.
The Kumano House Project is based on thorough studies and mapping of all the houses and valleys of Hirose. The traditional architecture, usage and program of all the houses where mapped in relations to the studies of the four different areas and valleys topography, weather and flow etc. Throughout the studies and mapping many relations in the architecture, location and orientation of the houses all factored in with the restoration and transformation of Kumano House. Kumano House is a project that recreates and interprets the site’s previous buildings. In a way to celebrate and frame the classic building techniques and by means of addition and removal gives the old construction new life. The project has a vision of creating a “get away” for cultivating and cleansing the body and mind. A “get away” in the quiet and beautiful surroundings of the Obustu-tani valley. The project is based on an idea to create a bath house with additional dining and guest house that imitates the classic way of building, and uses the premises that nature provides and which are dominant in this area. Three houses that all have a core that breaks with the strictness of the classic wooden construction. A core that acts as a focal point, the warm center, for the functions located in each of the three houses. Three hot spots are kept going by the natural ventilation, built into the construction like the classic houses in the valley makes use of.
The baths move into the already existing and preserved construction, which thereby creates the framework for the hot baths that make use of the clean water located just outside. The old structure is wrapped in a plastered clay dome, which, together with the darkness and steam from the heated baths, frames the construction, the building technique and the use of material. Spisehuset resumes abandoned agriculture on plots, and makes use of the many edible plants in the area. Here is the kitchen, followed by the bathrooms, wrapped in a plastered clay dome, with a slit that here frames the way of the ingredients to the dining room. An oblong room, with the possibility of division that opens up and frames a look over the three rice terraces that lay down. Finally, a guest house with a more intimate division of the rooms, with a wood-burning stove as the heating center. Here, from each room, the clean water that flows between the houses is framed in the views that are created when the long sliding doors are opened. It is therefore a project that, with three houses and three centers (domes), frames the nature of the valley and the construction technique that is dominant in the area. Three buildings that are inspired by the way the existing buildings use the dominant wind direction for ventilation and how this is expressed in the architecture. Three houses in exile that make use of their surroundings, and thereby create the framework for cultivating the body, mind and nature.