dorinSTEFAN: ahijap

Architects: Yasutaka Yoshimura Architects
Location: Yokosuka Kanagawa, Japan
Client: Nowhere Resort
Structural Engineer: Akira Suzuki/ASA
General Contractor: Heisei Construction
Area: 176.65 sqm
Year: 2009
Photographs: Yasutaka Yoshimura, Chiaki Yasukawa

Nowhere but Sajima provides a temporary ‘home’ for its guests. The weekly rental service provided by Nowhere Resort is a relatively new method of operating resort properties in Japan, and allows different tenants the opportunity to inhabit a ‘home’ on a weekly basis. While the weekly term is short compared to a standard monthly rental and long compared to a hotel stay, this in-between length accommodates a new diversity of uses of a ‘home’.

Serving as a space for exhibitions, as a classroom or for wedding parties, the unit easily adapts to the imagination and invention of the tenant and in doing so also re-defines the range of activities that can take place in the ‘home’. As well as accommodating the functions of work and business, the ‘home’ again becomes the space of many life events beside the basic function of ‘inhabitance’. In acquiring a new program for use, the ‘home’ regains the richness of activity that can take place all around of life.

The building, a triangular block composed of tube-like volumes heading to the ocean, stands on a point of reclaimed land in a small fishing village. While the site meets the seawall and directly faces the sea, it is also faces other buildings across the water. To provide adequate privacy without the use of curtains, narrow tube-shaped spaces were bundled together and angled to provide openings toward the sea. The orientation of these tubes naturally blocks the line of sight from the adjacent apartments and while gazing down the length of the tube from inside only the ocean can be seen. While providing an escape from the tide of urbanism characterizing what we normally call a ‘resort’, the design still maintains the key aspects of the resort experience. We have created a place reminiscent of looking out to sea from the deck of a ship.