Location: Fujisawa, Japan

Design Team: Niko Design Studio

Area: 84.28 m²

Year: 2025

Photography: Toshihiro Sobajima

Design Features: House for Adachi is a family residence in Fujisawa, Kanagawa, designed by Niko Design Studio for people living with three cats and a dog. Stray cats had long visited the garden of the former single-storey house, and the clients wanted the rebuilt home to preserve that relationship beyond the property line. The project therefore rethinks foundations, raised rooms and engawa edges so that the ground is not surrendered entirely to interior floor area.

The house is composed of a main residence and a small detached room toward the street. Most daily activities occupy the ground floor, where dining, kitchen, a raised tatami platform and a broad engawa extend around the garden. The upper level is reduced to the necessary volume for bedrooms, study, children's room and an accessible roof, allowing domestic life to spread across floors, eaves and planted ground rather than ending at room boundaries.

The decisive operation occurs at foundation level. The main house's concrete raft is divided into two parts, retaining real soil between them beneath an internal terrace. The detached room is lifted about one metre on piles, creating a sheltered undercroft where dogs and visiting cats can rest out of rain and sun. Raising the room also screens family life from views gathering at the corner site.

A wide engawa joins the interior and planted garden into a continuous living band. Timber posts, exposed beams and deep eaves establish a measured rhythm, while sliding doors and louvred insect screens adjust ventilation, shade, pet security and contact with the street. Moving through entrance, engawa, dining room and internal terrace reveals a boundary that can be repeatedly opened, filtered and inhabited.

Materials keep this structural idea tactile and domestic. Exposed timber gives the rooms a warm scale, dark coloured walls sharpen the grain of columns and rafters, and tatami, washi and planting distinguish places of rest. The detached room's washi finish was completed collectively, while custom steelwork and timber fabrication resolve the light undercroft and open perimeter at the level of construction detail.

House for Adachi treats multispecies living not as an added narrative but as a direct basis for foundations, section and boundary. Retained soil, sheltered space below the detached room, a terrace penetrating the house and an inhabitable roof form a connected ecology of everyday use. Its architectural significance lies in occupying less completely so that animals, plants, neighbours and family life can continue to meet.

Design Team: Niko Design Studio was founded in Tokyo by architect Taketo Nishikubo in 2001 and incorporated in 2011. Its work ranges from houses and collective housing to shops, mixed programmes, renovation and neighbourhood initiatives, with an ongoing interest in spaces that connect children, families and everyday urban life.

House for Adachi was designed by Taketo Nishikubo, with structural engineering by Noboru Enshu of Enshu Structural Consultants and construction by Sekiwa Construction. Hira Kaji and Ayumu Ohara contributed custom steelwork, Wataru Hatano produced the washi, and Katsumata Lumber carried out specialist timber fabrication. Their work turns animal movement, divided foundations and hand-finished materials into one coherent construction language.