Matsudo City, Chiba, Japan 
Studio LOOP
Post By:Kitticoon Poopong
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| Photo © Courtesy of Studio LOOP | 
The house is located on a narrow 
urban area in Chiba, Japan.
It has an 11-meter high, 39.41 square meters building area, and 143.81 square meters as a total floor area.
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| Photo © Courtesy of Studio LOOP | 
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| Photo © Courtesy of Studio LOOP | 
The initial idea of this house has started with studying to solve a  local 
zoning and planning laws distinctly limited possible form.  Within  the complex zoning framework, we imagined fairly tall structure as  compared to the neighborhood, and an irregular 
pitched roof has shaped  to provide a maximum interior space and floor area. 
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| Photo © Courtesy of Studio LOOP | 
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| Photo © Courtesy of Studio LOOP | 
The facade with this triangle shaped roof facing to the street has  different sized square voids arranged to diminish in a sense of a scale  of the house, and blends into the building context.
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| Photo © Courtesy of Studio LOOP | 
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| Photo © Courtesy of Studio LOOP | 
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| Photo © Courtesy of Studio LOOP | 
The interior space composition is characterized by a circulation that is  one of the important factors to design a house in this kind of a narrow  urban area.  Although each room needs to be adjacent to each other when  you draw a floor plan, a spatial and volumetric relationship of each  room in planning a vertical circulation is a key to create an enjoyable  experience.  A wooden staircase connecting each skipped floor allows the  family to act in many different ways such as circulating the small  house, as a storage space, as a space for reading and studying, and as a  lightwell of the house. Continuously shifting a large space to a small  space, a low space to a high space also brings a sensibility of not  being a small house. 
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| Photo © Courtesy of Studio LOOP | 
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| Photo © Courtesy of Studio LOOP | 
Not only the spatial characters of this house, but different floor  materials and a pole connecting a master bedroom to a closet in the 3rd  floor are favorite pieces for a young couple.      A 3.3 meter black  stained Japanese cedar wall in the living also welcomes to the raised  “wa” dining for making a family to have a habit of eating and drinking  at night.
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| Photo © Courtesy of Studio LOOP | 
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| Photo © Courtesy of Studio LOOP | 
Through the different sized openings of each room, space, light and  materials mixed with the wishes of the family brings an expressive  lifestyle. 
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| Photo © Courtesy of Studio LOOP | 
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| Photo © Courtesy of Studio LOOP | 
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| Photo © Courtesy of Studio LOOP | 
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| Photo © Courtesy of Studio LOOP | 
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| Photo © Courtesy of Studio LOOP | 
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| Photo © Courtesy of Studio LOOP | 
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| Photo © Courtesy of Studio LOOP | 
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| Photo © Courtesy of Studio LOOP | 
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| Photo © Courtesy of Studio LOOP | 
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| Photo © Courtesy of Studio LOOP | 
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| basement and ground floor plan--drawing Courtesy of Studio LOOP | 
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| second and third floor plan--drawing Courtesy of Studio LOOP | 
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| section 01--drawing Courtesy of Studio LOOP | 
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| section 02--drawing Courtesy of Studio LOOP | 
The people
Architects: Studio LOOP
Location: Matsudo City, Chiba, Japan
Structural Engineering: Daisuke Hasegawa Structural Engineers
Site Area: 66 sqm
Project Area: 144 sqm
Project Year: 2009-2010
Photographs: Courtesy of Studio LOOP