A Japanese Manga Artist’s House / Tan Yamanouchi & AWGL

A building that floats a few centimeters above our daily lives. On a small narrow plot (4.9 m wide, 14.7 m deep) in metropolitan Tokyo sits a wooden house. The clients are an up-and-coming manga artist, her partner, and two owls who are the new additions to the family. The manga artist made three requests: First, the house should accommodate the entire process of the artist’s work, from creative concept to completion, meetings, and giving media interviews. Second, the house should be compact and should not open to the outdoors too much. Lastly and most importantly, the house should spark inspiration for creativity. Envisioned as “a building that floats a few centimeters above our daily lives,” the architect strived to ensure that the dwelling is still tied to our tangible daily life but evokes a sense of fictional narrative.