HOUSE IN AKASHI
Akio Isshiki Architects
ARCHITECTS
Akio Isshiki Architects
LEAD ARCHITECT
Akio Isshiki
CONSTRUCTION
Sasahara Construction
GARDENER
Abcde Studio
PHOTOGRAPHS
Yosuke Ohtake, Brook James
AREA
77 m²
YEAR
2025
LOCATION
Akashi, Japan
CATEGORY
Houses, Renovation
English description provided by the architects.
When you hold a seashell to your ear, you hear the sound of the sea. I wonder who first said that? As a child, I found it strange that I could indeed hear something like waves crashing.
I imagined the source of the sound deep within the spiral, or perhaps a hidden hole leading to a distant southern island.
Seashells have a mysterious charm. Their iridescent interiors feel empty yet somehow full of sound, the scent of the sea, the memory of life, or even layers of time.
I renovated a 50-year-old house. I hadn't intended it during design, but stepping inside the completed house, I was reminded of a seashell.
I don't usually begin with a fixed theme. After arranging the rough composition, I piece together fragments—"This might be more comfortable" or "This could be more appealing"—to form the whole. When structural or cost issues arise, I adjust, aligning design with feasibility.
Out of this process emerged geometric qualities: curved walls to conceal piping, low ceilings with semicircular cutouts, and sliding doors reused from old Fusuma.
To allow light in while maintaining privacy from the busy surroundings, we created softly enclosed spaces using Shoji screens.
When opened, the sliding doors connect the entire house into a continuous, looping space.
Elements appear and disappear as the space extends deeper, inviting occupants into a soft labyrinth, much like the inside of a seashell.
The old structure's log beams and tilted frame resonate with the new curves and diagonal lines, as well as the free-form shapes of the homeowner's furniture.
This softens the linear, industrial feel and gives the house an organic presence. Deeply tanned beams hold fifty years of memory.
Sliding doors with newly replaced washi paper and reused chest handles blur the line between old and new.
Sunlight diffuses through Shoji screens and louvers, brushing the curved walls before fading into the depths.
Shifting light links scattered elements, dissolving contrasts—vertical and horizontal, old and new, Japanese and Western.
Open the windows and the sounds of the seaside town flow in: the sea breeze, a distant ship's horn, birdsong, the 5 o'clock chime. Sound, wind, light, memory—these intangibles fill the space, resonating together and changing with time.
Hoping this ever-changing space will gently embrace the family living here, I am reminded of a poem: Mon oreille est un coquillage Qui aime le bruit de la mer(My ear is a seashell / That loves the sound of the sea.)—Jean Cocteau, "Cannes V"
