Bay Window Tower House
I made a video for a family who designed their own house. A husband-and-wife team with day jobs working for architecture giants in Tokyo. The intent of the video is to give them something to brag about at work. The true purpose is that their children can one day lean how the house they grew up in came to be.
It’s a tall skinny house at the threshold of Tokyo’s metropolitan area. The most architectural moment, I felt, was the roof terrace with no view to the city. Go through three flights of narrow spiral stair and go outside, only to find that you’re surrounded by walls. Having lived in Tokyo myself, somehow this makes a lot of sense. When you live in Tokyo, you don’t want to see it. It’s not a pretty city like Bruges of Munich. It’s a sea of cost-effective constructions and hideous billboards. Just sitting there gazing at the sky reminded me of the Friends Meeting House by James Turrell. It’s a place to get away, and everyone in Tokyo needs a place or two like that. It’s unfortunate that they have to hang laundries there though…
