The ‘shell house’ by archi­tect kotaro ide, is a sculp­tu­ral shell-like structure which has been built in the woods of karu­i­zawa, loca­ted in the nagano pre­fecture of japan. the house is meant to function as a vacation home, which is able to withstand the humid sum­mers and cold win­ters of the region. to accom­plish this, ide opted not to use the typi­cal wood structure of villas in the area because of their suscep­ti­bi­lity to decay easily. Instead, he used rein­for­ced con­crete to con­struct two ellip­ti­cal shell forms which are sup­po­sed to repre­sent a conch. From its pro­file, ‘shell house’ takes on a j-shape which is rai­sed above the ground by 1400 mm resul­ting in the ‘flo­a­ting’ mas­ses. ulin wood is used to cre­ate terra­ces around the home with a cour­tyard into the cen­tre of the main living areas. the villa’s sim­ple aesthe­tic lends itself well to the tra­di­ti­o­nal japa­nese landscape, creating a balance between the futu­ris­tic man-made structure and the envi­ron­ment which surrounds it. The entire pro­ject took more than 18 mon­ths to rea­lize and two and a half years to complete.

zdroj: design­boom