Architecture Wednesday: Four Leaves Villa

This house screams peaceful … though screaming isn’t exactly calming is it?

In the forests of Karuizawa, Japan, about 100 miles from Tokyo, sits the Four Leaves villa designed to give owners and their friends and family an escape from the city. The architects  specifically faced different areas of the house at various angles in order to harness the best light and scenery all the way around the building, no matter in which room you sit.

On the brighter side of the house are the living and dining spaces so that social areas might stay light and cheerful as long as possible; this doesn’t mean that the private spaces are dark or dull because they do get a view to the west, and the sunset, through the foliage, while maintaining some privacy.

Even better, in my mind, is that the architects didn’t make a space for the house in the forest, but rather fit the house into what was already there. And this was done by creating three semi-distinct volumes that are connected by sunny hallways. And in order to further blend the house into the woods, the architects designed the roofs of each volume with a curved quality that appears to swoop towards the ground and then up to the sky; this also allows for curved beams on the interiors making the rooms inside vary in height at different points.

It’s calming and peaceful and, well, stunning.

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