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Architects: Tan Yamanouchi & AWGL
- Area: 92 m²
- Year: 2024
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Photographs:Toshiyuki Udagawa, Tan Yamanouchi
A Residence Inspired by a Members-Only Clubhouse – This project involves renovating a residential apartment near Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden in central Tokyo. The concept was to create "a home reminiscent of a members-only clubhouse." The floor plan was envisioned as a large, single-room space, with the only spatial divisions defined by the contours of the ceiling. The design takes inspiration from the owner's lifestyle, where friends and acquaintances often gather at the home, regardless of whether the owner is present. This unique approach creates a semi-private, semi-public space, closely mirroring the essence of a members-only clubhouse. The result is a distinct residential form that reinterprets urban living for single men in central Tokyo. For the two cats who share this home with the owner, the open-plan, wall-free space offers a visually expansive, liberating, and richly stimulating living environment.
To provide context, it is important to first reflect on the character of Shinjuku Gyoen. It is a historic national garden situated in the heart of Shinjuku. Established in 1906, the park spans an impressive 58.3 hectares and has a circumference of 3.5 kilometers. Entry to the park requires a modest fee, a rarity in Tokyo, where most parks are freely accessible. This aspect enhances its reputation as a unique and cherished space. Shinjuku Gyoen, therefore, is not entirely a public realm. While accessible to all, its paid entry imbues it with a degree of exclusivity, creating a semi-private experience both structurally and perceptually.
Moreover, Shinjuku Gyoen holds a special, almost irreplaceable significance for those deeply appreciating Japanese pop culture. Shinjuku Gyoen serves as the backdrop for The Garden of Words, a 46-minute animated film directed by Makoto Shinkai. The story unfolds during the rainy season, when Takao, a high school student aspiring to become a shoemaker, encounters Yukino, a mysterious older woman. Their first meeting occurs on a rainy morning in one of the park's gazebos, where they both seek shelter from the rain. As their encounters in the gazebo repeat on subsequent rainy days, their relationship deepens. The gazebo depicted in the film is a real structure within Shinjuku Gyoen.
These "gazebos" are small wooden pavilions with roofs designed as resting spaces. On rainy days, they offer a unique sense of comfort—simultaneously integrated into the surrounding landscape yet spatially distinct, creating an atmosphere of seclusion and independence. In the broader urban context of Tokyo, Shinjuku Gyoen acts as a semi-private, semi-public refuge. Within the park, the gazebos themselves embody this duality, serving as semi-private, semi-public spaces.
Next, we would like to delve into the essence of this project: the client's distinctive and inspiring lifestyle. The client (hereinafter referred to as K) is an office worker in his 30s who lives alone with his two cats. K spends most of the week with his friends. Specifically, he has many friends who visit his house, spend time, and return to their own homes as they please. His friends frequently visit, freely spend time there, and leave at their convenience. What stood out most was the way K's home operates, whether he is present or not. For them, K's house is their second or third living room where they feel comfortable at home. Each has a job, some even have families, and all lead individual lives. K's house seemed to exist as part of each person's life.
In this sense, K's approach to "home" resonates with the role of Shinjuku Gyoen within the city of Tokyo, as well as the function of its gazebos within the park. K works for a company headquartered in central Tokyo. He has a relatively flexible workstyle where he is required to come into the office only a few times a week, but he is not a special man who has the freedom to live however he pleases. However, because it is the life that K cherishes, we believe it has the potential to become one of the lifestyles that represent the future of Tokyo. Thus, we strived to realize an architecture that celebrates K's lifestyle. The result is a residence that redefines urban living as semi-private, semi-public—a "members-only clubhouse-like home" in the heart of Tokyo, and at the same time, a home that symbolizes one of the evolving lifestyles of the city today and in the future. This project, Tokyo Clubhouse, was conceived at the cultural intersection of the city, narrative, and individual identity.
The condominium K acquired is located on the upper floors of a residential building near the Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden. It belonged to the building owner, where they connected two units to create one unit of approximately 93 square meters that occupies the whole floor. There, we made a bold choice to convert the whole apartment into one big room. We meticulously designed the stepped ceiling levels to create a spatial composition that gently divides yet connects the highly public spaces with the more private spaces.
The minimum ceiling height is 1,320 millimeters. The low-hanging ceiling acts as partition walls. In addition, the 1,320-millimeter-high ceiling height comfortably fits furniture such as sofas or houseplants. The ceiling is finished with painted wood wool cement boards used in a 900-millimeter grid to boost material yield. The ceiling is finished with painted wood wool cement boards used in a 910-millimeter grid to boost material yield.
As for the floor finishes, the more public spaces are finished with herringbone brick tiles, while old solid wood boards were used for the more private spaces. The mutual interference between the stepped ceiling heights and different floor finishes is designed to create a gradation of space in a wall-less room. In a space without partitions, the resident can feel the presence of their friends having a good time from anywhere in the house.
We designed one piece to accentuate the space: a circular table for six to eight people made of galvanized steel plate with a 1,800-millimeter diameter glowing in dull iridescence. We utilized the existing kitchen unit and repainted the surface. The curved wall in the kitchen is finished with roughcast (a plastering technique to hit the wall with a special tiny broom to create a rough surface). Penetrating where there used to be a wall separating the two units is a glass shoe box next to the entrance. It is designed for K's collection of sneakers that would add color to the space.
The approach to the guest entrance (one of the two entrances) is adorned by a mixture of characteristic materials, including the roughcast curved wall in the kitchen, the glass door to the shoe closet, the brick tile flooring, and the ceiling resembling inverted stairs made of wood wool cement board. He also shares the house with his other family members, his two cats. The wall-less studio apartment provides a living space where they can run around freely without obstruction. His two beloved cats are one of the most crucial aspects of K's lifestyle.
Finally, We would like to note that the design of the Tokyo Clubhouse was also intended to address the current state of "apartment renovations" in Japan. In Japan, residential layouts are often categorized using the "n-LDK" system, where "LDK" denotes the living, dining, and kitchen areas, and the number refers to the additional rooms. This classification system has led to a prevalent trend in which unnecessary walls are constructed solely to increase the "n-LDK" count. These superfluous walls, built to satisfy a numerical convention rather than functional needs, reflect deeper systemic issues in Japan—issues that extend beyond architecture into broader societal contexts. This is not to advocate for an extreme preference toward one-room layouts. However, Tokyo Clubhouse aspires to serve as a positive example, demonstrating how thoughtful design can challenge conventional practices.
