This minimalist residence located in Imabari, Japan, was designed in 2013 by Keisuke Kawaguchi + K2-Design.

Description by K2-Design
Imabari City, located in northeast Ehime Prefecture, is connected to Onomichi City in Hiroshima Prefecture by way of the Shimanami Kaido, an expressway that spans across six islands over the Seto Inland Sea. Imabari City is well-known for its picturesque sea view, called tatoubi, of the Setonaikai National Park. Due to the surrounding calm seas, Imabari has developed into one of the biggest industrial shipping ports in Japan, and is also famous for its towel industry.
This private residence was built in downtown Imabari for a family of four. The property is elongated westward from a road on its east, with a spacious yard to the north along a waterway. A seven-story apartment building towers on the south side of the property. The concern was how to block the line of vision from the apartment building and maintain privacy, while ensuring ample light and ventilation. In order to meet these requirements we designed a 40 meter concrete screen wall along the south side of the residence. Precise calculations were done for its size and structure. The structural feature we adopted is ukikabe, a floating screen wall, which is suspended above the ground 1.5 meters away from the exterior of the residence. An important feature is that it is a concrete wall. The purpose in choosing such heavy material was that it was imperative the wal...