Four Leaves

摘要

It's not every day a house has four hovering roofs. Yet the Four Leaves Villa - so named as each roof curls as naturally as a fallen forest leaf -is as unexpected as it is organically curved. 'If it had a typical pitched roof, the space would be rigid', explains the building's architect Kentaro Ishida. 'We wanted to do the opposite and create a softened space.' Framed by forest, four distinct roofs smoothly twist, flow and overlap in clean lines, creating a striking apex to three rectangular boxes. Simple in its abstraction and yet boldly striking, the end result offers a hint of Japan in its temple-like sweep of wooden eaves. Other Japanese touches range from low windows known as yukiml mado (snow-viewing windows), framing moss garden views to the deep bathtub overlooking the forest. Ishida is also interested in imperfection, 'the idea of not creating a complete, perfect house', a characteristic he finds in traditional Japanese teahouses 'where there are no straight timber frames', and in 'the gentle curvature of temple architecture'. Yet Ishida insists he 'never intended the design to be Japanese'; a self-described 'hybrid' Japanese, Ishida was raised in Los Angeles, studied architecture in London, and worked at Herzog & de Meuron in Basel for nine years, before setting up his Tokyo practice in 2012.