Casa Wakasa Japan, Osaka Property, Japanese Home, Images, Architect, Building, Design, Photos

Casa Wakasa – Osaka Home

New Residence in Japan: Contemporary Japanese Property – design by WHY Architecture

8 Jan 2009

Osaka Home

Design: WHY Architecture

New Osaka Home

Casa Wakasa, home to a young family of four is located in the suburbs of Osaka, Japan.

The house attempts to be both a reflection into contemporary Japan’s family life (sense of family vs. privacy) as well as a solution to balance individual freedom and space with collective activities and time.

The basic unit of the house is an amalgam of a room and an outdoor courtyard; each room for each member of the family has an integrated garden as its counterpart.

The house design gives emphasis and space to the glass-sided living room, surrounded by open gardens. The father who works as a dentist from 9AM to 9PM everyday wants to have a place in his own house that at the end of the day he could withdraw even from his family, his wife and two young daughters, to pursue the subjects of his personal interest – music, films and books.

This open glass room, connecting to the house only through an underground corridor, is the sanctuary where he can be himself. The family has meals and activities together in the family living and dining room but each one of them could withdraw into their own world in their own room / garden.

The spine promenade / passage linking all the rooms is designed as an “engawa”, the semi-outdoor transitional space seen in traditional Japanese architecture. This implies its ambiguous and transitional essence; it is not a room yet functions as one, not merely a corridor but used as linkage. Like traditional “engawa”, it is the true linkage in many senses; it links the indoor rooms with outdoor gardens, links spaces together into a composition, and it links multiple individual worlds into a family.

Project Name: Casa Wakasa
Project Location: Osaka, Japan
Project Area: 3,000 sqft
Program: Private Residence
Architects: WHY Architecture
Completion Date: 2006

Casa Wakasa – Photograph description and credit

1) Model – overall view
copyrights : WHY Architecture
2) Model – Side wall
copyrights: WHY Architecture
3) Front façade of the house from street
photograph by Koji Nagasawa
4) Front courtyard
photograph by Thanaraj Vang
5) Back garden at night
photograph by Koji Nagasawa
6) Living room looking towards back garden
photograph by Kulapat Yantrasast
7) Entry hall looking to the central “engawa” passage space
photograph by Koji Nagasawa
8) Entry hall at night
photograph by Koji Nagasawa
9) “engawa’ passage space at night
photograph by Koji Nagasawa
10) Living room
photograph by Thanaraj Vang
11) Central staircase, linking all levels of the house
photograph by Thanaraj Vang
12) Japanese tearoom
photograph by Thanaraj Vang
13) Inner Courtyard
photograph by Kulapat Yantrasast

All images and photographs courtesy of WHY Architecture
Copyrights for all photographs belong to photographers as noted

Casa Wakasa – Building Information

Architect : Kulapat Yantrasast, WHY Architecture
Associate Architect : Akira Matsumoto Architect & Associates
(Akira Matsumoto, Tomoki Nagai)
Structural Engineer : TAPS
MEP : Pulse
Construction : Abe Komuten co, ltd.

Casa Wakasa Osaka Home images / information from WHY Architecture

WHY architecture

Location: Osaka, Japan