A small Mountain Cottage with Big Roof
=The Story of the Forest of Beech Tree=

ISHIMA,Hirofumi Architect's Atelier
Architect ISHIMA, Hirofumi

About 14 years has passed since I met Mr.T. However, this work still has lived inside me without any fade. What is more, I think it is the story of the interaction　between people with warm hearts.

It was July of 1996 when I was requested for designing of the mountain cottage in Tazawa-lake highlands from him and his wife. They visited my office for the first time through an introduction from me and my wife's acquaintance. I still remember clearly that Mr.T and his wife's soft eyes caught my heart. It means their purity, and I have no words to express such a pleasant feeling, what is say to a “suitable distance”.

I told them about my thought of architecture, and I also heard their demands as clients. I remember that they have little demands. They told me not to cut down huge trees which have big branches including a large oak in the lot of 363.50㎡ as much as possible. In residential design, most clients usually tell me dozens demands, so I have to materialize them one by one. However, talking about this cottage, there is no limitation. This is the freest conditions, but in a sense, it also takes the most self-control.

Until this cottage had been born, there were supposed so many difficult situations. For example, the cost of building it, selecting someone who constructs it and the means of supervising a building site where its distance was more over 80km from my office. What is more, Tazawa-lake highlands start to snow from November. In spite of such situations, I had to complete this building before this year's Christmas.

This cottage still increases its luster with age. Through architecture, I have relations to many people, and what is more, these relations bring up architecture.

This cottage is still the place where we talk various things with drinking if each other's time permits. The blissful time when I spend in Tazawa-lake highlands of snowy and severe cold gives me the new power that I try to survive a new year. It's so difficult to maintain a mountain cottage, and it's also hard for this cottage to keep on enduring snowstorm. However, needless to say, continuing to keep it alive ensures that we keep on living with benefit from the immense of architecture.