Works

Niwa of Asake

The client refurbished the 90-year-old private house and revived it with its old fashioned taste intact.
We relocated the gate to the site where it used to be a backyard. There was a beautiful masonry of the adjacent mansion along the pathway to a station, so we incorporated it into an unified scenery. Thus a group of individual houses transforms into one cityscape. A landscape would change dramatically if you win its surrounding elements to your side.
We repurposed the disused well as a flower-stand and laid a lengthy path by the house. The great cherry tree what was once a symbol tree has reduced its vigor with the years, and at one point cutting it was considered. But by relocating the gate, we utilized the tree as a foreground object by the path. From the gate to the entrance, you would feel the vigor of a thick trunk. In entering the front door, you see the broad earthen floor leading straight up to the back door. When you open it, the picturesque landscape comes into view. Gardens change their aspect depending on viewer’s perspective.
What is genuine riches? We tackled that question in designing the garden.

photo by Hayato WAKABAYASHI