We renovated an LDK-style house in Izu into a colorful villa featuring a living bath.By creating new spaces with views of the sea, and by subtly shifting the arrangement of the floor, walls, ceiling, curtains, and furniture while slightly altering the wall colors, the villa feels more expansive. This design allows you to feel the grand scale of the garden, sea, and sun from anywhere inside the house.
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A 19-year-old LDK-style house stood on a hillside of the Izu Peninsula. The sea, which felt so close, was surprisingly hidden from view from every room inside. Despite this, the clients purchased the house for a two-base lifestyle, drawn by the allure of the ocean. Their long-term plan was to eventually live here full-time, cultivating the spacious garden and enjoying the hot spring water that flows from the taps. To achieve this, they wanted to transform the prefabricated house into a true vacation home.Beginning with the client's request for an "open bathhouse," we analyzed and re-imagined the existing floor plan. The original structure had a complex mixture of one-meter modules and column centers that were slightly shifted for ergonomic reasons. We leveraged this unique condition, designing "overlapping floor plans" by deliberately shifting the boundaries of finishing materials and the placement of furniture to make the space feel more expansive. The bathhouse became the home's new center of gravity, like a hearth. As the surrounding spaces settled into place, every area felt larger than its physical dimensions. We continued the design with the intention of extending this sense of expansion from the indoors out to the garden and the sea.Inside, we painted over the existing wallpaper with two types of white—one with a purplish tint, the other with a yellowish tint—to create a subtle color change over time, allowing one to feel the scale of the sun and, by extension, the sea. Outside, we shifted the terrace on the first floor away from the French doors, and on the second floor, we removed the existing balcony railing to create an unobstructed view of the sea.Starting with these "overlapping floor plans" and then "incorporating the scale of the outside world into daily life" and "connecting the living spaces with the sea and garden," we envisioned a life where one could feel a depth and scale that transcends the actual space, allowing their consciousness to extend far into the distance.