House in Okayama, Japan

The house was planned for a family of six, including two children and two grandparents. A certain degree of privacy was required for the different lifestyles of the three generations, but the family wished to share a common living area. The two-storey house consists of a central core, with the living-dining room on the upper level and the bedrooms on the ground floor. The core is surrounded on all sides by a corridor that extends over the full height of the house. As the sole link between the private rooms, it thus ensures a certain distance between them. Folding doors and movable louvres create a flexible means of opening up or closing off these spaces. The corridor also forms a buffer zone, which protects the core from extremes of temperature.