Book Binding

When looking at the House in Sakuragawa, it is obvious that the small corner lot size has an effect on how slender and compact the actual house is. However, once you are in the space it appears to open up and look much bigger due to the nature of the arrangement of levels and the voids between them. When I approached the task of making a book, I wanted to carry on the same theme of being very small and compact on the outside but once you open it, pages fold out different ways and create more space just as the house does. I felt that it was important to not deconstruct the book so much that it wouldn't look like a book anymore so I took a rather traditional approach in size, shape, and function of it. I used a stab binding style to bind the book with the mylar cover acting as the skin of the house.

Another theme that I saw with the house is privacy. When you look at the house from the outside, the only view you have into what is happening is through the long horizontal window wrapping around the second floor. Normal houses in the U.S. often have windows in every room of every floor but the Japanese's view on this is quite different as we have seen from several of the house we looked at. In the book, my plan was to allow for a small glimpse as to what is going on in the inside of the book through a horizontal viewing area on the cover. The idea, once the book is filled, is to be able to see a little of what is written or drawn in the book on each page along the same level throughout. This essentially would create the pattern that is needed on the front and back cover.