8kumo - TANK

This project is the renovation of a small room in a small building. This will be utilized as a rental room for a single woman.

I considered that the room should have flexibility and the tenant can arrange it as she likes.
I started planning with 3 key ideas;
1. Create enough space for a lavatory.
2. Make the floor plan flexible but divide rooms with functionality.
3. Leave some parts for the tenant to arrange as she likes.

walk-way from entrance to the kitchen is 3m.
On the left side is the lavatory. Floor has a mortar trowel finish.

Prior to renovation the space was in a state of disrepair and neglect, the walls were rotting and crumbling; it was unlivable.

View from the kitchen to the living room. The kitchen wall is also mortar trowel finish. There is larch box over the range hood. It was painted with a semi-white clear urethane paint, inside is white plywood.

In addition to this condition, narrow passage ways divided each the space into multiple narrow rooms. The bathroom was very tiny, the washing machine space was next to the closet in the Japanese tatami room. A structural wall had to be taken into consideration as well.
This lavatory is made larger as in modern style, a separate bathroom and washstand. When both doors are open it is a hallway to the entrance.

View back from the living room to the kitchen. Birch flooring in the living room. The screws for the fixing the bed room's rafters, are not visible from living room side keeping a pure wooden asthetic.

There are two ways to go to bedroom, one is through the kitchen space and the other is via the lavatory. The entrance and connecting hallway is a ‘doma’, it’s a little longer then a normal entrance-way, these are utilized as a hallway, small garden area, or cloak.

View from the storage area. This wall is made of china wood, you may enter from either side of the wall.

*The doma is the entrance hall situated at the same level as the exterior grounds. A typical traditional Japanese entrance-way.

In order to appear light and clean, I don't use extra rafters or mounting screws. The leading edge of the lavatory is also a mortar trowel finish.

There are no doors for the bed room or walk-in closet. These walls and ceiling have an unfinished look, I leave it to the tenant’s taste as to how to utilize these rooms.

View from the entrance hall to the bed room through the lavatory. Walls have a mortar trowel finish. On the left side is the lavatory. The white wall is structural in this picture.

In the evening the bed room light casts long decorative shadows from the rafters and surrounding frame.