VUILD completes first digitally fabricated house within mountainous village in japan
architecture studio VUILD led by koki akiyoshi has completed ‘house for marebito’ within toga village of nanto city, japan. this project challenges the local issues of forestry and marginal settlement by only using local lumbers and computer numerical control (CNC) milling machine called ‘shopbot’. the introduction of shopbot enables the local community to produce and fabricate wood by themselves.
the front view
images by takumi ota, unless stated otherwise
a ‘wind-catcher’ was arranged to the east side facades in order to secure daylight, ventilation, and warmth at the same time
for the construction, a new local networking system was proposed which completes the whole process, from material procurement to installation, within a 10-kilometer radius in order to make use of local forest resources, and approach the decline of forestry. the first step was to introduce a low cost but high-performance digital fabrication machine ‘shopbot’ to the local lumber mill called nagata corporation, and the second was to slice the logs and turn into wooden boards, which is a standard that can be processed with shopbot. by processing all the wooden parts to be small in size, the designers succeeded in involving residents who had never participated in architecture or construction, such as kids, women, and elderly people. in addition, small parts are excellent in transportation and can be constructed without scaffold at the sloping land and narrow space.
the inside view
as for the design process, VUILD has introduced shopbot again, using digital fabrication to generate local traditional architectural techniques called ‘gassho zukuri’ and ‘wakunouchi’ originally developed to withstand heavy snowfalls. in addition, great attention was given to the orientation of the house, with the gable surfaces placed north and south in order to imitate gassho zukuri, and mountains running parallel to the guesthouse forming a U-shaped gutter, similar to the path of the wind. a ‘wind-catcher’ was arranged to the east side facades in order to secure the daylight, ventilation, and warmth at the same time.
mountains run parallel to the guesthouse, forming a U-shaped gutter same as the path of the wind
the view from the passage to the house
low cost but high-performance digital fabrication machine was introduced to the local lumber mill
image by hayato kurobe
the logs were sliced by the machine and turned into wooden boards, a standard that can be processed with shopbot
image by hayato kurobe
image by hayato kurobe
residents who had never been able to participate in architecture were involved in the process
image by aya ikeda
small parts are easily transported and can be constructed without scaffold at the sloping land and narrow space
image by aya ikeda
traditional techniques were realized by shopbot
image by aya ikeda
location: 433 taikanba, toga village, nanto city, toyama prefecture
structure: yasuhiro kaneda
electricity: matsuda denki kougyou co., ltd
metal plate: kawabe metal plate kougyou ltd.
hardware: hiramiya co., ltd
lumber: nagata corporation
foundation: ueda corporation
site area: 330.08m²
building area: 52.44m²
total floor area: 59.32m²
designboom has received this project from our ‘DIY submissions‘ feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here.
edited by: myrto katsikopoulou | designboom
