Japanese architect Junya Ishigami has completed his impressive, cave-like home and restaurant project in Yamaguchi, Japan. Named House & Restaurant, the 270-square-meter structure, made of earth formwork reinforced concrete, was pre-casted on-site by internalizing all natural distortions and uncertainties of the land itself.
Restaurant owner and chef Motonori Hirata was looking for something brand new that felt long-established. “I was asked to design a building as ‘heavy’ as possible,” says Ishigami. “’I want an architecture whose heaviness would increase with time,’ [Hirata] said. ‘It cannot be artificially smooth but rather something with the roughness of nature. Authentic cuisines require such a place.’ He also told me that ‘it has to look as if it has been there and will continue to be there for the longest time.’”
To create a form that appears made by nature, not man, and to test the structural viability of the concept, Ishigami’s studio conducted a series of three-dimensional modeling exercises to determine the critical loading points, as well as the potential shapes and proportions of the openings that were key to the project’s cave-like quality.
Difficult to realise via modern construction methods, the unusual form was achieved through an interpretation of the ancient lost-wax process of casting sculptures. Instead of wax, the compacted earth on the site served as the mold into which concrete was poured through holes dug in the ground. Akin to melting the wax to reveal the sculpture, once the concrete had cured, the soil around it was dug out to reveal the structure, the mud leaving its own, unique imprint on the built.
The similarly cave-like home has two bedrooms, and a large open space with a dining table and a sunken living area. The home’s small kitchen has also been lowered and the counter and sink are made out of polished poured concrete. All the gaps between the uneven structures were 3D-scanned to allow the precise making of window and door frames that would fit each individual opening.
Photography by junya.ishigami+associates
