Japan

House

Built as a home for both our client and their parents as well as studio and meeting spaces for their business, this house combines lessons learned from rural Connecticut modernism with concepts borrowed from traditional Japanese design. Encircled by a stone wall inspired by New England agrarian buildings, the overall configuration of the house and its courtyards and gardens was conceived in collaboration with a feng shui master, with a ceremonial gate that opens onto the garden to the north, and a door for everyday use to the southeast, adjacent to the bulk of the house’s program. A carport to the northwest allows clients to visit the studio work space independently of the rest of the house. Critical to the house’s organization is that nearly every room look onto the main courtyard, with its carefully composed array of trees and plants, creating an environment entirely apart from the urban residential neighborhood just beyond the meticulously laid stone wall.