Architects: UUfie / Eiri Ota + Irene Gardpoit Chan
Location: Kanagawa, Japan
General Contractor: Shirako Tech co, ltd
Project Year: 2009
Project Area: 74 sqm
Photographs: Daici Ano

Located in a 30 year old apartment complex, Nagi is a renovated living space for a young married couple and child. The construction consists of dismantling the existing spaces to leave only the skeletal frame. Creating a bare canvas, the spaces are then washed in 70% diluted white paint on the new oak floor, concrete ceilings and walls, and new built-in furniture. Next, two curving steel pipes, 13m and 4.5m in length are suspended at 1.9m from the floor creating a permeable division. Hang with no support from the ceiling, they function like tracks of monorails in the city distributing to the respective spaces. Curtains are hung along the extent of the railing. The curtains are made with velvet fabric and are printed with geometric patterns through a processes of melting rayon on to fabric. The curtains provides visual privacy while allowing light to transmit across the spaces. As experienced, the spaces changes and adjusts to the life of the family while the railings remain always there as a backbone to support it.