Toilet

The development of the toilet and the treatment of excrement in Japan are closely linked to a growing mechanization of the lavatory as a device and its progressive shift vis-à-vis the house from outdoors to indoors. In the Edo and early Meji Periods toilets were located at the edge of or outside the house. Conceived as a squat-latrine system, made out of wood, it was adapted for the easy collection of the excrement, which was then used as fertilizer. Between the World Wars, new systems, new materials, and even new toilets (for instance toilet bowls) were slowly introduced, while the collection of sewage became more and more mechanized, with basket collection being successively replaced by trucks, then mobile vacuum-extraction units, and later still by a Western type of sewage system with pipes. In recent years the predominant European-based device has become hyper-Japanized, highly automated (including washing, drying, background noise, cleaning, disinfecting, etc.), and even described and praised as something kawaii (cute, adorable) in the public narrative.

Bath

The research follows the transformation of the Japanese bath over the last 150 years from a set of portable objects – each designed for its respective distinct purpose yet not bound to a particular space – to a bathroom integrating the different elements into a whole unit, including the surfaces of the ceiling, the walls and the floors, as well as the hidden installations for water supply, water heating, sewage disposal, driers, lighting, and so on.
Originating as a service reserved to a privileged few – where the water was brought from the well by a servant, while another servant was responsible for heating it, preparing the bath and maintaining the right temperature – more so than with other devices and spaces in Japan, the history of the private bath is closely linked to social emancipation. In the post-war years the equipment of apartments with baths, facilitated by compact and safe gas-water-heaters, became a symbol of improvements in quality of life under the welfare state, while in more recent years the fully-equipped bath has more and more become a highly technological space of contemporary comfort and body-care, its surfaces imitating wood and tiles and thus, via associations, continuing to establish relationship to its origins, albeit an indefinite one.

D’Agostino House

This is a house with two entrances and a shortcut, situated between an iconic townhouse and a parking lot. Related solely to its neighbor and to Venturi’s large, unrealized D’Agostino House, we opened for a linear tripartite sequence – front garden, living space, and utilities – in which one moves from automotive urbanity to the innermost sanctuary of the human dwelling.
The garden hides behind a façade that nods to its neighbor and whose mere existence is a Venturian feature. You park the car and advance diagonally to the subtle front entrance.
The living space is a large cubic space. Its direction changes abruptly and dramatically breaks up the linearity of the scheme. One glides upward via a broad stair, into the light that flows down from the large windows above.
From here, one moves either up to a second floor bed room or down to the kitchen, from which you may also jpg B escape via a backdoor.

LIFE PERFORMANCE

Living in spacial voids carved through unique movements

Two performers in flux – one spinning, one climbing. Their living environment is defined by a balance of solid and void. An originally solid block, spatially subtracted by the motions of the spinner, acting almost like a mill, constitute an unconventional place for living. Spaces shaped by the motion of spinning, circular in their nature, in one continuous fluent place. The remaining volume being reminiscent of rauks, a column-like stone pylon eroded by the sea. Not only are the structures a true climber’s dream to cling onto, but the confined void into which one pushes and compresses to sustain oneself further caters to the behaviour.