Project Info
- Architects: EASTERN design office
- Team: Anna Nakamura + Taiyo Jinno
- Location: Kyoto, Kyoto Prefecture
- Photographs: Koichi Torimura
- Function: Houses
- Completion: 2011
- Structure: Wooden frame
- Floor area: 103.47 m² (2F)
- Material: Wood
Keyhole house | EASTERN design office
Words by mooponto Staff
July 29, 2013
The facade of this house has the shape of a keyhole.
A key to open “my house”, which is standing along a narrow street of a crowded town, is designed as a key itself on the facade of this house. A house can be called a key, which will open up your life happily. Such a small key, this house is a key!
Keyhole house is located in Kyoto, Japan. It is a small house for four people and two cats. It has only 100 square meters of floor space.
It is standing alone in the corner of a small parking lot like a table left behind at the seaside.
• The facade is marked by a window shaped like a key.
• Mortar with sumi ink is applied to the exterior wall.
• Simple color coding. Red and purple are used as an accent.
• The triangle roof.
• Random arrangement of small windows.
• The edge to make the shape of this house clearer.
There is a thin steel eave that is fixed to the facade of this house as if it is floating, and a key-shaped slit like a “picture”, crossing over the eave. A red wine-colored door. These are laid out like a beautiful pattern designed on a jewel box.
You sometimes will see a cat lying by the window at this house. You wonder what is she watching…
Do you still have a naive heart with a key to open this house?
first floor plan 
second floor plan 
section 
sketch 01 
sketch 02 
sketch 03 
keyhole sketch
