Renowned 860 Sq. Ft. Mini House Demonstrates Potential of Small Lots

The 860 square foot Mini House, designed by Yoshiharu Tsukamoto of the Atelier Bow Wow architectural firm in Tokyo, demonstrates the potential of small lots over the world. The Mini House was recently exhibited along with other small houses designed by Japanese architects in exhibitions in Munich, Frankfurt and Weimar, Germany, that were organized by the Huber Roessler architectural firm of Munich. "We tried to turn the fluid aspect of the surroundings, which are not exactly unusual for Tokyo, into a positive characteristic," Tsukamoto said. "We think this surface study has value in investigating communications between the house and the existing urban environment." Birgit Huber, principle in Huber Roessler, commented that: "We are very impressed with the work being produced by the younger architects in Japan. Their work not only makes very efficient use of space but also delivers a very strong design statement." Tsukamoto added that: "Computer aided design plays an important part in my work. The CAD system that I used, VectorWorks from Nemetschek, made it possible to investigate the interplay with the surrounding neighborhood with a minimum of hassle."

The Mini House exhibition began when Huber and Johannes Roessler, principles of Huber Roessler, traveled to Japan to examine the work of younger artists. "We discovered a number of architects that were producing designs no larger than what many of us would consider to be appropriate for a garage. For example, Foba House in Kyoto is only 3 meters wide and 16 meters deep and occupies a total footprint of 52 square meters. Yet, these designs not only make very efficient use of the existing space, they also stand out a unique works of out of art. The basic philosophy is that the houses are designed to serve as your third skin, with your first skin being your real skin and your second skin being your clothes. Most are located in heart of major Japanese cities where the occupants can simply walk down the street to visit wonderful restaurants, public bathhouses, libraries, etc. For that reason, many of them do not have a kitchen, nor a bathtub, nor a space designed for entertaining guests. The houses mesh with their surroundings by providing the one thing that is lacking in the city – personal privacy."

Smaller projects by younger architects

"On a recent visit to Japan," Huber said, "we found the smaller projects by younger architects very interesting. We took what we had learned into account in own work and decided that we wanted to share it with others. We immediately thought of sponsoring an exhibition but realized that it would be hard to attract sponsors and a venue because people in Germany didn’t take the idea of houses this small very seriously. So my partner collected CAD models and photographs from some of the architects that we felt were most representative of this style. Then he put together a computer graphic presentation that gave viewers the opportunity to walk through the houses on the computer. This presentation was made easier by the fact that nearly all of the houses were designed using VectorWorks, the most popular architectural software in Japan by a wide margin, which happens to be the same one that we use in our firm. This software package allows for the creation of very realistic models and then lets you create a tour through the project that provides the viewer with a very realistic idea of what it is like to live inside. Our hope was that this presentation would help us establish the kind of interest and support that we would need to create a full-scale exhibition in our home country."

"The presentation was even more successful than we hoped," Huber said. "The viewers could take on the perspective of a person walking through these small houses. This made them realize the potential for such small spaces and helped them envision what it was like actually living in such an environment. The model made it easy to visualize the relative size and shape of each room and including furnishings to help provide size perspective. We had a very positive reaction from nearly everyone who viewed it. It helped us to helped us to establish credibility for and build interest in the Mini House concept. Most important, we were able to attract corporate sponsors and interest several major institutions in staging Mini House exhibitions. To date, these include the Architectural Gallery in Munich, the Museum of Modern Art in Frankfurt, and the Bauhaus George Muche in Weimar. Institutions in Zurich and Vienna have also agreed to present this exhibition."

Issues involving the site

This site of the Mini House itself is surrounded by a small street to the eastern face, a private access lane to the south, and a field put aside for future metropolitan ring road construction to the west. "This dense residential district is losing its urban structure along the old Kawagoe Highway because of the recent redistricting plan, " Tsukamoto said. "In fact, it is very difficult to imagine what will actually happen on this western side. In addition, like much of the rest of Tokyo; this lot is very small. But despite its fluid and unstable environment, the building must deal directly with its reality. The sense of distance between architecture and the urban environment becomes an inescapable question. The most important issue was to prepare an orientational sensibility that can disperse beyond the site. We started by trying to turn the fluid aspect of the surroundings into a positive characteristic, since this is such a typical situation for Tokyo."

"We took care to not limit the active site response to any single face of the house," Tsukamoto continued. "We offset the building from each site limit, and pushed out subvolumes towards the fenceless boundaries. The result is a three-story house with multiple fronts, like the Ani House. The fine steel structure fully utilizes the floors and perimeter walls of the building. There is no overriding post and beam framework, so we were free to make openings and protrusions in any location on these structural surfaces. The elastic surface allows a siting method of extending arms in four directions and eyes in more directions. Through interpreting the surroundings, we can study at the same time both the needs of the internal layout and the activation of the exterior. We think this surface study has value in investigating a communication between the house and the existing urban environment. What it means to build residential housing in Tokyo permeates through the interior and exterior interdependencies at Mini House."

The role played by CAD

A large number of design iterations were required to produce this unique design. Each iteration began with a two-dimensional sketch that Tsukamoto creates in VectorWorks. In order to define geometry, most CAD packages require that the element be selected first, then the command issued; others require that the command be issued, then the element selected. These systems require a considerable amount of time and effort to define basic geometry which interferes with the conceptual development process. VectorWorks, on the other hand, provides a SmartCursor that snaps onto nearly any significant geometric feature, streamlining the process of generating a design from basic geometric shapes. The SmartCursor automatically identifies relationships like endpoints, midpoints, center points, tangencies, and real and extended intersections.

If Tsukamoto wants to connect a line to the midpoint of another line, for example, all he has to do is move the cursor in the general vicinity of the midpoint, then when a "midpoint" cue appears, click the mouse. The program does the work of maintaining alignments and ensuring that geometry is precise, freeing the user to concentrate on functionality of the design. Besides this powerful feature, the interface of the VectorWorks package is generally more intuitive than other CAD programs. In VectorWorks, elements, commands, and snap-to-grid or object options are all available as mouse clicks and single keystrokes and the order of execution is usually not an issue. The designer can turn tools on or off, pop up palettes, change line types, and modify objects instantly and intuitively.

Tsukamoto also takes advantage of VectorWorks' easy-to-position working plane to place individual components on different elevations. The software makes it possible to drag the working plane around in 3D with the mouse, rather than making it necessary to go to a plan view and specify the location there. The ease of making changes to the computer model encouraged Tsukamoto to keep fine-tuning the Mini House design until he achieved the current award-winning design. He believes his use of CAD made this design better than if he had used traditional design methods, in part because it gave him time to try many options. CAD also improved the design by giving Tsukamoto a better understanding of the appearance of the Mini House in relation to its surroundings than he would have gotten from concept drawings or physical models. "Working with VectorWorks is as easy as working with pencil and paper yet it provides a mathematical level of precision," Tsukamoto concluded.