Minimalist Home at Toyota / Nori Architects
+ 30
A new urban housing prototype – A home for a young couple and their two children in Toyota City, Aichi Prefecture. It is located on a long and narrow site from east to west, there is heavy traffic on the west side of the road, closely adjacent buildings on the north and south sides with a wide opening to the sky in the southeast on the second floor. The block is a compact box with a front of 2 ken (3.6 m) x 7.5 ken (13.6 m) deep, 15 tsubo (50 m) x two floors = 30 tsubo (100 m) in total, about 6 m high. The structure is divided into three levels. A large window on the southeast wall of the living room connects to the urban void.
The covered terrace along the street side of the dining room and kitchen has a lattice facade and sheer walls on both sides to allow full access to light and the changing winds while maintaining a moderate sense of distance from the city. To ensure year-round comfort and energy efficiency, the outer skin and mechanical equipment are designed for comfort and energy efficiency. Within a tight budget, we devised ways to ensure high performance with a combination of completely discounted materials and low-priced equipment.
We created a warm, wood-filled space by ditching the interior finishes with exterior insulation and exposing the wood structure, plinth, tubes and wires. This allows residents to understand the structure of the building and make repairs and alterations themselves. This is a proposal for a new urban housing prototype in the era of global environmental crisis, by providing a delightful home that is open to both inside (the family) and outside (the city), filled with light, wind and natural materials, with little building materials and waste.
Achieving high earthquake resistance, comfortable thermal environment, and healthy soil environment at low cost. By laying load-bearing walls with structural plywood and steel brackets at appropriate intervals on both ends of each floor in the short direction, we achieved a high earthquake resistance performance (Grade 3) while eliminating deformation differences in the skip floor and suppressing deformation during wind pressure, as well as ensuring flexibility and spatial transparency. The height of the three floors has been reduced to less than 6 metres. The roof is built with a reduced number of components, by utilizing 3.5 inch square timber over the exterior insulation and a folded roof over the baseboards and asphalt roofing.
This strategy helped simplify the roof frame and eliminate the need for rafters. Using external insulation, high-performance window strips, and cornices, the building achieved a high performance envelope, with a UA value of 0.49 (ZEH+ standard) and a ηAC value of 2.2 (above the energy conservation standard). A comfortable thermal environment has been achieved at a low cost by devising ventilation methods and using fans and ducts to distribute warm/cool air from a single floor air conditioner to each area. In addition, the entire site, including the soil, was improved by digging trenches and holes outside, burying organic matter, and allowing water and air to move through the soil in a way possible even for amateur builders.
