Marutau Arqui builds Octa House on former car parking space

Architecture studio Marutau Arqui has completed a home with a multi-faceted red facade on a tight plot on Japan's Shikoku island.

Named Octa House after its plan, which comprises two "deformed" and overlapping octagons, the project was designed by Marutau Arqui for a local family with three children.

Surrounded by high-rise buildings on a tight plot in Ehime prefecture, the home was built on a former car parking space.

It has a distinctive appearance with uneven exterior walls designed to give the impression that it is composed of many smaller buildings.

The ground floor contains a covered garage and functions like a podium with a ceramic siding, while the above floors and pitched roof were covered with steel cladding in a brick-red colour.

This upper cladding was installed in horizontal strips with gaps to appear like brickwork.

The vibrant colour was selected to bring "warmth, softness, and identity" to the house, said Marutau Arqui founder Yoko Okegawa.

"We proposed a brick color that is familiar to people in Japan and blends in well with the streetscape, yet does not blend in with its surroundings and expresses a strong sense of presence," she said.

The studio originally designed a simple rectangular shaped plan for the upper floors.

However, in order to keep the building within the allowable area and include outdoor space for building equipment such as water heaters and pumps, the studio went through a "trial-and-error" process of diagonal corner cutting.

The final plan comprises two octagons with a triangular depression in the center of the first-floor facade to "create a rhythm of convexity and concavity in the linear facade".

From the inside, the plan creates a centripetal effect, pulling focus towards the centre of the building and providing a "sense of security" for its inhabitants, explained Okegawa.

"It also provides a sense of openness through the wide-angle view from the continuous openings," she added.

Marutau Arqui placed the house's staircase at the centre of the plan, acting as a functional core for the house, and arranged the living and dining spaces and main bedroom on the first floor.

The three children's bedrooms are on the second floor.

The voids in the plan also create outdoor spaces such as a small triangular planting terrace and a spacious terrace on the second floor, coming off an additional living space.

Marutau Arqui has offices in Ehime and Tottori and was founded by Okegawa in 2018.

Other recent homes in Japan on Dezeen include an off-grid home by Florian Busch Architects cloaked in a solar panel facade and a pyramidal concrete home on a sloping site in Okinawa.

The photography is by Toshiyuki Yano.

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