Block Wall House

The house is a timber structure of one storey set between five concrete walls that stand three metres high, and the living spaces sit in the gaps between the rows. The walls are made of about 2,050 blocks laid on a horizontal concrete grid, each block angled, and the angle changes in three-degree steps from room to room.

A single row sets the view in one direction. Where two rows overlap, the view comes through only where the front and back angles line up, which is how the bedroom and bath are screened and the living and dining rooms stay open. In the photographs one wall runs five blocks high and shifts from closed at one end to open at the other.

The blocks are CO2-SUICOM: more than half the cement is replaced by an industrial by-product and a carbon dioxide-absorbing material is added, and Kajima, the Chugoku Electric Power Company, Denka and Landes developed it. The faces are pale grey, with small pits and form marks.

Inside, the floors, ceilings and columns are timber, boarded overhead with flush downlights, against rough concrete elements and matt dark grey surfaces. The fittings in the bath are black metal. nendo designed it, with Noritaka Ishibayashi, Hiro Shoji, NIITSU-GUMI and Landes credited as collaborators; the structure is wood, 70.74 square metres (761 square feet), on 1,264.75 square metres of land.