Skip To Main Content
Issue 61 - Vintage Modern Issue

Issue 61

Vintage Modern Issue

The breadth and scope of Habitus has always been extraordinary. With how we live at heart of every issue, we have stepped it up with Guest Editor David Flack of Flack Studio shaking the ‘how’ and looking at new ways to make a house a home. With Vintage Modern as the issues theme, we look at the way iconic design has stayed with us, how daring pieces from the past can add the wow factor and how architecture and good design defy the pigeon hole of their era.

Order Issue

A Product of

A Residence In Tokyo Found Inspiration In The Humble Tree
HomesHolly Cunneen

A Residence In Tokyo Found Inspiration In The Humble Tree

Japan

Tree-ness House by Akihisa Hirata Architecture Office in Tokyo is inspired by the simplicity and inter-connectedness of a tree, it’s bark, branches and leaves.


There’s something to be said for the humble simplicity of a tree. One of the first things we tend to draw (visually communicate) as children is ourselves or our family, outside in a park beside a tree, the sun probably shining down from the corner.

This affinity stays with us through life, the simplicity of a tree developing into the desire to be close to, apart of, and with in, nature in a much broader sense.

And yet, a simple tree isn’t really all that simple. So found Akihisa Hirata Architecture Office. Their recently completed Tree-ness House located in Toshima Ku, Tokyo – as the name suggests – draws inspiration from the organic structure.

Tree-ness House Akihisa Hirata cc Vincent Hecht concrete boxes
Tree-ness House Akihisa Hirata cc Vincent Hecht void

“One tree is organically integrated with a combination of parts having different characteristics, such as a trunk, a branch, and a leaf. As with tree, we tried to create organic architecture that could be formed by a hierarchical combination of different parts such as plants, pleats (openings) and concrete boxes,” says the team.

Concrete ‘boxes’ are stacked three-dimensionally and provide an intriguing exterior along the streetscape. Inside, they form the fundamental structure of complicated voids and spaces that don’t necessarily line up on traditional levels.

Tree-ness House Akihisa Hirata cc Vincent Hecht concrete exterior

The bedrooms are made to be calm environments inside the boxes, while the exteriors become either terraces or gardens; the living and dining rooms are enclosed by glass walls offering a happy medium between indoors and out: the naturally occurring environment and the man-made.

Like a tree, Tree-ness house is strong and uniquely formed. The residence simultaneously provides shelter and connection to the world beyond its four figurative walls.

Akihisa Hirata Architecture Office
hao.nu

Photography by Vincent Hecht

Tree-ness House Akihisa Hirata cc Vincent Hecht driveway
Tree-ness House Akihisa Hirata cc Vincent Hecht dining room
Tree-ness House Akihisa Hirata cc Vincent Hecht interior view
Tree-ness House Akihisa Hirata cc Vincent Hecht study
Tree-ness House Akihisa Hirata cc Vincent Hecht library
Tree-ness House Akihisa Hirata cc Vincent Hecht bedroom
Tree-ness House Akihisa Hirata cc Vincent Hecht bathroom
Tree-ness House Akihisa Hirata cc Vincent Hecht atrium
Tree-ness House Akihisa Hirata cc Vincent Hecht atrium
Tree-ness House Akihisa Hirata cc Vincent Hecht streetscape

We think you might also like Medway Drive by Produce


About the Author

Holly Cunneen

Tags

Akihisa HirataArchitecturejapantokyoToshima KuTree-ness HouseVincent Hecht


Related Projects
Issue 61 - Vintage Modern Issue

Issue 61

Vintage Modern Issue

The breadth and scope of Habitus has always been extraordinary. With how we live at heart of every issue, we have stepped it up with Guest Editor David Flack of Flack Studio shaking the ‘how’ and looking at new ways to make a house a home. With Vintage Modern as the issues theme, we look at the way iconic design has stayed with us, how daring pieces from the past can add the wow factor and how architecture and good design defy the pigeon hole of their era.

Order Issue