What we learned from a very small house
Thirty-eight square metres, one person, and the rules it taught us about every house after it...
The smallest house we have built is thirty-eight square metres, for a retired teacher who wanted less. It taught us more than the largest.
Rule one: one good room
A small house cannot afford a mean room. So it has one room, tall and bright, and the sleeping and washing are alcoves off it.
Rule two: storage is architecture
Every wall that is not a window is a cupboard, floor to ceiling, built in. Nothing stands on the floor except a table and a bed.
Rule three: the outside is a room
A terrace the size of the house, with a wall on the windward side. For half the year the house is twice its size.
Rule four: height is free
Floor area costs money. Air above it does not. The one room is four and a half metres tall and it feels like a bigger house than most we have built.
We now apply all four to houses ten times the size, and they are better for it.
One building a month, by email
A photograph, the plan, and the reason. Nothing else.
Hana Sato
Architect and one of the four partners. Writes most of what appears here and draws the plans with no furniture on them.
Folio
An architecture and interiors journal: houses, rooms, materials, and the reasons behind them.
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