This was an entry in a limited competition for an apartment building. The site is in a suburb, in front of Eda Station on the Tokyu Den’entoshi Line, about 30 minutes away from the center of Tokyo. Apartment buildings stand in the vicinity of the site. An apartment is not a substitute for a detached house. I wanted to propose an apartment building that would offer a lifestyle not possible with detached houses. The units proposed here are not the usual apartment units with deep, narrow plans and an entrance accessed from a corridor. Two thin blocks, arranged in parallel, have been cut out three-dimensionally, and maisonette units have been combined like pieces of a three-dimensional puzzle. Basically, each unit has a private outdoor space such as a double-height terrace or a court. This proposal for an urban lifestyle provides units that enable residents to live in close contact with nature without always having to go to a park and suggests a form of community in a suburb of an enormous city that is possible only in apartment buildings.
