Location: Oiso, Japan

Design Team: ISO architects & associates

Area: 98.33 m²

Year: 2026

Photography: Tomomasa Kusunose

Design Features: ISO architects & associates designed this 98.33 m², single-storey timber house in Oiso, a coastal town in Kanagawa once known for its villas. Having completed a long career, the client chose the site for the final chapter of his life and offered one essential request: the house should make the atmosphere of the place perceptible. Light, breeze, shifting plant shadows and the ageing of materials are therefore treated as part of domestic life rather than external scenery.

The generous plot allowed the house to remain close to the ground. Its combined living, dining and kitchen area is almost equal in size to the inner courtyard, with an engawa, deep eaves and an earthen-floor terrace mediating between them. There is no single, emphatic boundary between inside and outside; the transition unfolds through shade, thresholds and changing floor surfaces, making the courtyard a coequal centre of the home.

Few partitions interrupt the plan. Entrance, hall, dining and kitchen spaces, living room and tatami room remain connected through sight and air. Rising beams follow the roof and introduce a gentle rhythm to the broad horizontal interior, giving each place its own light, scale and centre of gravity without fragmenting the whole. As one moves through the house, the courtyard alternates between a complete view and a narrow peripheral presence.

A continuous cedar-board wall extends from the interior to the courtyard fence, unifying the background while receiving the moving shadows of foliage. Timber, plaster, glass and the earthen terrace are not conceived as immutable finishes; sea air, sunlight and use are expected to leave gradual traces. The architecture is best understood through relationships: the depth of an eave, the lift of a beam, the direction of the boards and the placement of an opening collectively tune the body to the seasons.

House in Oiso responds to the altered pace of life after retirement. It offers distance from the constant pressure of information without withdrawing from the world. Courtyard, sky and wind become recurring measures of the day, creating a home that is quiet in expression yet open to continual environmental change.

Design Team: ISO architects & associates was founded by Kensuke Iso in 2017 and incorporated in 2021. Born in Kanagawa in 1984, Iso worked at Studio Chū from 2008 to 2013 and at Yasushi Horibe Architects from 2014 to 2017, developing an approach grounded in residential scale, material detail and construction. He has also taught part-time at Design Farm since 2013. The practice is based in the Tama-Plaza area of Yokohama.

The studio works across architecture, renovation, retail and interior design, land-use planning, products and furniture. It understands sincerity, function and vitality as connected foundations, seeking spaces that support human activity and become part of their landscape without asserting themselves too loudly. ISO architects & associates led the design and supervision of House in Oiso, with structural engineering by Teppei Nakamura and construction by Seto Construction Co., Ltd.