Bronze Architecture · 2025
Wedge House Residence
- Bronze A' Design Award 2025 in Architecture
- CLIENT: Masato Ikuta
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 12,587
- Verification code AF0303626D · Verify this award
Colors
About Wedge House Residence
Wedge House is a three-story residence built on a narrow site with a steep slope in Ikeda City, Japan. The wedge-shaped cross section places the largest floor at the top and the smallest floor below ground, so that no added force is applied to an old retaining wall. The two upper floors are made of wood and the basement is made of reinforced concrete. The east and west walls are finished with silver coated steel plates that support the cantilevered floor and frame the view to the south. The living area on the second floor opens to a terrace with a wide view.
About the Bronze A' Design Award
Wedge House Residence is a Bronze A' Design Award winner, a highly prestigious recognition granted to outstanding designs distinguished by creativity, ingenuity, and astuteness. Bronze winners are amply skillful and strikingly creative artifacts that authenticate the vast experience, imagination, and resourcefulness of their designers. Wedge House Residence is expected to be a highly regarded, admired, and cherished object that is notably professional and innovative. This Bronze A' Design Award-winning design incorporates best practices in art, science, design, and technology, and is excellent for its attention to detail. Wedge House Residence splendidly satisfies needs, touches desires, charms feelings, and appeals to curiosity.
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- The site has a nice view, but it is narrow and has a steep slope, and due to area regulations, the building coverage ratio is a strict 40%.
In order to meet the required area to comply with strict regulations, we adopted a three-story mixed structure with two floors above ground made of wood and one floor below ground made of reinforced concrete.
The building has a wedge-shaped shape, with the second floor, which has the best view, as the living space and the largest area, and the area decreases as you go to the lower floors to avoid applying force to the retaining wall. - Dimensions & Packaging
- Total floor area 111.16㎡ Width 5560mm x Depth 11000mm x Height 10190mm
- Tags
- Slopingland structure protruding structure wedge Basement mountainside
- Production Technology
- The east and west walls are finished with silver galvalume steel plates, which support the cantilevered floor that protrudes from the basement, and at the same time serve to frame the view to the south.
The basement is a bedroom with a sense of security that feels like it's nestled on a slope. The first floor has a water area and a study with a view of the greenery of the park behind the deep eaves. From the sky terrace of the LDK on the 2nd floor, you can enjoy a panoramic view of the Osaka plains. This is a house where you can enjoy the three different slopes of Mt. Satsuki. - Design Challenge
- Stable structural design with an underground shape that does not apply force to old retaining walls on a narrow, steeply sloped site, and a protruding structure for the wooden upper building.
- Research
- Research on stable structures with protruding shapes in wooden buildings
- Inspiration
- The site is located at the foot of Mt.Satsuki in Ikeda City, Osaka Prefecture, Japan. The site was narrow, and more than half of the site was on a steep slope.
Additionally, the site is located on an old, tall retaining wall, so the building had to be constructed in a way that would not put stress on the retaining wall.
Therefore, the building's cross-sectional shape is wedge-shaped, with the basement being the smallest and increasing as the floors rise. - Project Duration
- Design for the project began in September 2022 at a site in Ikeda City, Osaka Prefecture, and was completed in June 2024.
- Operation Flow
- A basement with a shape that does not apply force to the old retaining wall, and a pop-out floor structure for the upper wooden building to maintain the required area.
- Patents
- Copyright 2024 Kiyoshi Sugimoto.
- Image Credits
- All photos and videos Hirofumi Imanishi
