In Tokyo, the space is a very valuable asset: the plots of land for the houses are small and the ideal solution is for the vertical development. The restoration project of the Keiji Ashizawa Design studio for this traditional Japanese house has born from this conception of space.
The owners of this house in a quiet residential area of Tokyo, a family with two children, and to maximize the surface, we are also very bright environments. The main difficulty was to find a way to bring natural light into the house, because of the existing small windows, but especially for placement suffocated by the dense jungle of buildings.

The solution came from. Also to meet the new demands of space, added a third floor building, designed for half a lounge area to the other on the terrace, a rooftop courtyard which renamed the house as Skycourt. This fundamental intervention has become a sort of huge windows throughout the house: the light comes from this new level to get through to those underlying the inner courtyard that runs in height throughout the house.

Besides this vertical outlet, was opened on the south side of the house, a small outdoor area between the new walls and windows of the house a fence that guarantees the privacy of rooms.
To maximize this wealth of light were reversed the positions of the rooms of the house, bringing the living room, kitchen and dining room on the second floor while the bedrooms and bathroom on the ground floor have been moved around a garden Japanese style. In the basement, complete the home environment, a study and guest room.

Among outdoor surfaces, large windows and external (mainly) internal draft of the study of Japanese architecture, consolidates the trend of homes that blend with the outdoor spaces indoors.