On the Corner by Eastern Design Office

Japanese architectural firm Eastern Design Office has designed On the Corner apartment house. The four-storey, wedge-shaped building is located in a industrial-cum-residential area in Youkaichi City in Shiga Prefecture. The site was left unused for many years because of its small size and unusual shape.

Designed as a tenanted apartment, the building has seven rooms. Each room is composed of a living room, two bedrooms, a bathroom and a kitchen.

Following is a description from the architects, “The elevation of this building takes the shape of the triangle plot. It is a triangular residential complex of 13 meters height with the base line 23m x height 12m x oblique line 26m.

The concrete which serves as a structure is designed carefully. Other than that specific materials are not used here. The exterior wall is made out of square cut stone, concrete and glass formed like scattered cards on it. They are bound by a “cross” so that the spread out material would not disjoin. It looks like a present, a toy box or a castle where the boys and girls of the story of Michael Ende could be entering.

It is a triangular building configured by the square elements. The cross confines the power of the mixed materials into one. A shuffle of stones, concretes, and glass. Keen edge of each material is too sharp. A shuffle of mass and void. The design “on the corner” consists of blue and the cross. A composition of line and plane surface is created by the clearly distinguished edges of the material.”

Photography：Koichi Torimura