Emoto Apartment Building

An apartment building laid out to enhance the two streets of the Komagone neighborhood, not far from downtown Tokyo. The site is surrounded with large buildings, and a local neighborhood behind, with lower buildings and much narrower streets. It is five stories high, built on an irregular site, and contains 23 small apartments, as well as a shop at the center, and a jewelry office for the owner. The design of the apartments is based on a pattern language archetype with tatami rooms and western rooms, that are placed in different irregular sizes throughout the building with entrance gardens, entrance rooms, and balconies where possible. The owner occupies part of the fourth floor and also enjoys a roof garden for his extensive plant collection, including a tea house at the center on the fifth floor. Reinforced concrete with soft yellow terrazzo and white shikui walls, red-tile roofs and green volcanic Ohya-ishi limestone garden walls. .