Komada Architects' Office

The city overflows with spaces and places of diverse attributes—varied in scale, material, and color. Around Maison-K, one finds narrow alleys, small houses built between the late Showa and early Heisei periods without gardens, trees planted in narrow gaps, potted plants by entrances, and a mix of colorful walls and roofs. These diverse fragments interweave intricately within the urban fabric.

What we sought to achieve with Maison-K was to transform and re-edit these fragments in order to discover a structure in which differences coexist in proximity—touching, overlapping, and invigorating everyday life.

In the second phase of the project, all units are maisonettes, composed of vertically paired spaces with high and low ceilings. The relationship between upper and lower levels alternates, and together with the articulation of the upper floor, the building appears as an assemblage of distinct forms.

A balcony running along the second floor functions like a three-dimensional alley with subtle shifts in height and level. There are no dead ends—it allows a circular movement between interior and exterior, extending one’s view into the gaps of the city and offering sudden connections to the larger urban scale.

At certain points, the building volumes overlap; in others, they seem to continue seamlessly into neighboring houses. Residents move vertically through spaces of differing qualities—circulating, seeing through, crossing boundaries, and repeatedly intersecting paths. Each space and element does not exist in isolation; rather, through contact, proximity, and overlap, they form a structure that embodies a dynamic totality.