projects

higashiizu

project: higashiizu
location: shizuoka
type of use: private house
status: completed

credits:
architect: kentaro kimizuka/kimizuka architects
structural engineer: takahiro sato/team sakura
photo: makoto yasuda, kentaro kimizuka

brief description:
Higasiizu is the final house designed for a client who got terminal cancer, to stay for his last period and to leave something other than money for his family.
Continue reading »

sendai house

project: sendai house
location: miyagi
type of use: private house & cafe
status: on going

credits:
architect: kentaro kimizuka/kimizuka architects
structural engineer: akira ouch/s form
photo: kentaro kimizuka

brief description:
Sendai House is an innovation project of a typical Japanese traditional farmer’s house that was almost destroyed by the big earthquake and tsunami in 2011.
Continue reading »

azito

project: azito
location: shizuoka
type of use: villa
status: completed

credits:
architect: kentaro kimizuka/kimizuka architects
photo: makoto yasuda

brief description:
Azito is a villa located on a steep slope land. The building was originally deserted for a long time before this conversion was made.

The villa is connected with the main hotel area by the strategically designed long approach, from which guests can hardly recognise the appearance. For this reason, the design focuses on how to make the architectural promenade from the guests’ eye level point of view.
Continue reading »

azamino soho

project: azamino soho
location: kanagawa
type of use: private house & office
status: completed

credits:
architect: kentaro kimizuka/kimizuka architects
photo: makoto yasuda, kentaro kimizuka

brief description:
A two-story house with work space/salon which is also used for various small events and even temporary marketplace.

Chains of open rooms, a wellhole in the centre of house and movable glass partition walls facing to terrace help obscure borders between private and public and lead one-off house to be a device of connecting people.

“Working” is to keep connection with society. If this type of house gets more common, many houses will get no longer just closed box separated from the community.

o house

project: o house
location: tokyo
type of use: private house
status: completed

credits:
architect: kentaro kimizuka/kimizuka architects
structural engineer: akira ouchi/s form
photo: makoto yasuda

brief description:
A three-storey house for a nuclear family. The site is situated near a noisy main road and surrounded by small office buildings and dwellings.

To ensure privacy and noise reduction, massive polished plaster walls were set out first. Then openings were clipped out to gain natural light, wind, view of sky and an adjoining garden. The main area, comprised of living, dining, kitchen and atelier, is secured on the first floor and open to a private terrace surrounded by the plaster wall and louvers. The second floor, white box slid from the lower mass, is a solution to reduce impacts to neighbouring sites due to the shadow and volume.
Continue reading »

villa cocoro

project: villa cocoro
location: shizuoka
type of use: villa
status: completed

credit:
architect: kentaro kimizuka/kimizuka architects
statutory application: atelier m+k
photo: jimmy cohrssen, kentaro kimizuka

brief description:
Villa cocoro is the only villa standing on a hill top of 5,000sqm private garden in the middle of nowhere. It was originally an old farm house which was relocated from elsewhere and reassembled imcompletely.

To convert the farm house skelton into the new villa, six distinctive areas were chosen from among the existing frameworks first, then being recharacterised by contrastive but correlative design elements, materials, and finishes. All the areas are linked with each other to provide the programmed sequence for guests.
Continue reading »

k house

project: khouse
location: saitama
type of use: private house
status: completed

credits:
architect: kentaro kimizuka/kimizuka architects
photo: kentaro kimizuka

brief description:
Refurbishment of the top floor of a three-story house.

Originally the top floor comprised of three rooms, bathroom, and middle corridors as a part of the three-story house. The rooms were gloomy and not used effectively. The purpose of refurbishment is to convert the top floor into a flat for client’s new family; the lower floors are used by his parents as they were.

The proposal is to remove the corridors and combine two rooms into a large room used as living area, dining are and kitchen without partitions.

Plywood finished box-like partions sitting in the middle are in contrast with tiled area and keeps the sense of residential scale in the large room. There are linen wall cabinets and bathroom behind them.

Full height sliding doors unify the entire space, when they are open, and work for natural vent in the summer night and effective air-conditioning in the winter daytime.

light well house

project: light well house
location: tokyo
type of use: private house
status: completed

credits:
architect: kentaro kimizuka/kimizuka architects
structural engineer: yse
photo: kentaro kimizuka

brief description:
A two-story house for a young family and their grandmother, projected after the destruction of the original dwelling by fire.

The ways in which different generations living together can find a common value in their house will become one of the key issues in the imminent future, with the phenomenon of an ageing population and the long recession.

The light well, from which the plan spirals out, is first dedicated to the grandmother’s memories of the former courtyard and her room, then also brings the taste of “simpleness” and “brightness”, that the young family think much of. Each generation may find each meaning in the light well at the beginning. However, this light well, a void in the centre of the house, is intended to be a deeply meaningful space, etched over time with the shared memories of the two generations.

n house

project: n house
location: tokyo
type of use: private house
status: completed

credits:
design architect: kentaro kimizuka/kimizuka architects
photo: kentaro kimizuka

brief description:
A small two-story house the foot print of which is almost the same as the shape of land like a flagpole.

This two-story dwelling has only two main rooms. One of them is ldk on the 1st floor, the other is a master bedroom on the ground floor.

The house cannot afford to have a kid’s room physically. Instead, there are extra spaces, around the stairway on each floor, and a loft above the area with an access to the roof terrace. These spaces are suppose to be used for their kid in different ways and would work like a room as a whole

villa cocoro spin-off

project: cocoro spin-off
location: shizuoka
type of use: walking and observation decks
status: completed

credits:
design: kentaro kimizuka/kimizuka architects
photo: kentaro kimizuka

brief description:
Walking decks and an observation deck facing to the canal behind as well as enclosing the water tank.

The scrapped timber with intentional random details, is supposed to assimilate into the soil in due time. Then, “figure” by the decks is being reversed to “ground” as the surrounding is getting clad in greenery.

y house

project: yhouse
location: tokyo
type of use: private house
status: completed (detailed design)

architect: kentaro kimizuka/kimizuka architects
photo&images: kentaro kimizuka

brief description:
A garage house, comprised of small different leveled floors that cluster around the stairwell.

Three cars to be stored on the site.

m house

project: m house
location: tokyo
type of use: private house
status: completed (concept design)

credits:
architect: kentaro kimizuka/kimizuka architects
photo: kentaro kimizuka

brief description:
A small extension to activate the relation between an existing house and its garden.

The existing garden area is very “narrow and long” along the approach on a couple of meters lower ground. The scheme refers to the concept of British terrace house with “narrow and long” garden behind. However, the depth of this extension block is much shorter without garden space behind; actually the main block is allocated perpendicularly to the axis of the approach.

The proposed plan for the extension block looks like a terrace house folded by 180 degrees. It means that the approach and garden sit on the same side. However, the garden is accessible only through the extension block without short pass from the approach, so that the plan wisely keeps the sequence of terrace house with garden behind.

insurance bank prototypes

project: insurance bank prototypes
location: tokyo, chiba
type of use: agency office
status: completed

credits:
architect: kentaro kimizuka/kimizuka architects

brief description:
Prototypes for an advanced insurance bank unit.

The salon style office space does not have any reception counter nor border between staff and customer areas. The staff has a laptop and works at a desk which is not occupied.

Three featured communication areas to follow each process of insurance maintenance, are set out around the centre storage booth.