Living in Showa (2) "Minimum" Life

It is still Japan in the 1950s.

Through the era and social background introduced in the previous article, we can summarize the following two issues faced by young Japanese architects at that time:

1. Insufficient number of residences and lack of materials. , shortage of funds

2 The values ??of the entire society have changed, and the old houses that followed traditional norms no longer meet the needs of the times

Under these two conditions, many architects have begun to think about how to Looking for new housing models in the new era and values, he gave his own proposals.

This article introduces one of these cases, the "three-dimensional minimum housing" designed by Yang Chibean and completed in 1950. "?.

The "Three-dimensional Minimal House" is a two-story wooden structure house with a building area of ??47 square meters. It was designed for the nuclear family of three people consisting of "couple + children" that emerged in large numbers at that time.

Designer Yang Chibean, the main research object is the industrialization of housing that is closely related to the times. At the same time, he believed that "the interior of a house is a product of life" and "housing is technical and cannot be produced by economic development alone." Therefore, he denied building houses in factories. He has been conducting his own experimental design based on the subject of building a single-family house. These experimentally designed residences were initially named with numbers and continued until No. 95. The title of the first publication of "Three-dimensional Minimal House" was "Experimental House No. 3".

The whole building is like a closed wooden box, without the eaves formed by traditional wooden structures.

The outer skin of the building is made of wooden strips, a relatively cheap and easily available material at a time when materials were in short supply.

Just like the title, the purpose is to use a three-dimensional method to solve the "minimum" life needs

The entire interior can be said to be a unified large space, but try to be in one room. Create diverse fields.

In a small space of 47 square meters, there are three complete bedrooms, kitchen and living room. In addition to the ordinary bathroom, there is also a bathtub. Gas was not popular at that time, so a stove was set up outdoors.

Children and couples were kept separately. At that time, they were influenced by democratic ideas and valued the privacy of personal life.

The dining room and living room are a double-height space that occupies most of the house and extends to the second floor. The extension of the height also makes the entire space not appear narrow and oppressive.

In order to save space, there is no entrance hall. Changing shoes and other operations are done outside the door. Open the door and enter the restaurant.

It can be said that although the entire house is not large in area, it has all the space needed by a family of three, and the space utilization rate is quite high.

Different from the traditional "tatami life" in Japan, the three-dimensional minimum residence adopts a more modern "chair life", thus introducing flush toilets and modern kitchen equipment that were rare at the time. At the same time, construction costs were taken into consideration. Through careful consideration of planes and sections, we strive to ensure the pursuit of quality of life despite insufficient funds and materials. In this case, we can see Chibian Yang’s answers to the first two questions.

Other experimental houses by Japanese architects during the same period:

Completed in 1952, designed by Kiyo Kiyo

The building area is 63 square meters, and the residents are a couple +Two children.

Evaluated as "a combination of traditional Japanese architecture and modern technology", it retains the characteristics of traditional Japanese houses in the appearance and structure of the study, while at the same time creating a home based on new family relationships. Spacious living space.

Completed in 1953, designed by Zeng Zexun

The building area is 99 square meters, and the residents are a family of 5 people. The bedrooms are arranged at the east and west ends, with a large living room that is transparent to the north and south in the middle.

The toilet and bathroom form the core and are placed in the large living room.