This is a weekend house in Karuizawa, Japan, for a couple with two children living in central Tokyo. The family was familiar with the area, and they stayed many holidays in hotels nearby. Finally, they decided that they wanted their own hotel room in the forest, a 70sqm suite for a family of five to make the most of their holidays.
In YSLA we wanted to maximize the time quality that the family would spend in the house and for that we proposed them to slow down from the city life and reconnect with nature. We fancy them to feel wider, feel better, to live around the forest, taking in its atmosphere. This will be what in the Japanese culture is known as Shinrin-Yoku, the mindfulness practice of bath forest. It’s known that walking around the forest can upgrade creativity, boost immunity, and diminish stress in other words; it helps you to achieve the Latin proverb “a healthy mind in a healthy body”.
YSLA Architects
To fulfil this connection, the designers build a home around the forest, a house in which its corridor extends to the forest and embrace it as an extension. The forest became part of the living room; the line between interior and exterior became non-existent and they can feel wider, feel better.
The family can enjoy the totality of its nature, they can walk, run, bike, skate… At the end of their holidays the family can go back to Tokyo feeling they had a healthy, balanced, and full of happy days together.
Photo
Munetaka Onodera
