Villa Saitan by Eastern Design Office

Saitan is 2 combine word. Sai means variety of beautiful colors that make something more attractive and Tan is the color of the shrine gates, vermilion. The Villa Saitan apartment building in Nishioji-hachijo, Kyoto – Japan. It was design by Eastern Design Office. This construction is a collective housing consisting of 11 units.From the main street we enter into a covert place along an alley of 4 meters in width. The entrance to the house is from the root carved into the center of the front wall. The architecture is covered with a wall in which holes are cut. The idea of windows like sunbeams filtered through trees has developed with the following methods: lined up balconies of average collective housing are completely hidden here, there is no balcony for each room, the ceiling height of one room is raised, dwelling units are elevated one meter from the ground. The collective housing that is built on such a historical place should not be seen as an average apartment house. Such notion occurred to us, which might have led us to the idea of an “immortal tree.”This architecture gives an answer how to build a low collective housing in a quiet but dense place.