Large cedar-clad openings connect the interior living spaces to the courtyard. The bright and airy main living spaces wrap around the courtyard.
What was once a poorly planned floor plan has transformed into open, brightly lit living spaces at the hub of the home.
A wooden grid wall separates the kitchen from the couple’s work area, which features a one-armed sofa and a large paper pendant, both of their design. The family dog, Billie, often gets a smile from Junko for good behavior.
A drop ceiling was removed to expose the home’s crooked, hundred-year-old haris, or beams, like the one over the dining area. The table and chairs, the articulated linear pendant, and the trio of ink-blackened walnut pendants were all designed by the couple and, like many other furnishings in the home, built by +Veve, a local woodcraft studio. It was partly the tight cooperation with +Veve that led Chris and Junko to establish Craftsman Collective, a project that connects talented international designers with traditional craft workshops.
The couple flipped the typical townhouse layout by putting the bedrooms on the ground floor and the living areas upstairs. “The lower floors of machiyas tend to be cave-like,” says Chris, “so we decided to sleep in the cave and live upstairs in the bright open area.”
Like the other houses on the pedestrian-only street, their home comes right up to the pavement’s edge, but unlike any other, it greets passersby with a wide glass facade.
