Japan 2016Roof / Birds
Roof / Birds is a guesthouse for people who love art. It sits on slope in a forest overlooking Mount Asama; a well known habitat for wild birds.
In order to minimize the impact of the architecture in the forest, we divided the building into blocks and aimed for a composition wherein a collection of small roofs seems to fly through the forest. The roof of each unit opens or closes according to its relationship to the surrounding landscape, thus acting like the fluttering wings of a flock of birds.
In order to ensure as much transparency as possible on the ground, a solid steel pillar of 65 mm square is used, the smallest profile we could achieve while supporting the deep wooden joists of the roof. This reduced the mass of the building to the extent that the volume appears to be floating in the forest.
