The Constructed Book

The Tofu House

The sketchbook as an extremely personal and vital design tool in architecture usually consisting of a combination of writing and drawings. The two segments to the book stem from the two separate parts to the brain that split up the creative and logical. One side is used for drawings (creative) while the other offers a place for analytical writing (logical).

The Constructed Book comes from Carol Burns’ theory on whether architecture should draw from its’ site and everything around it or simply start clean. Many times books are made in the same fashion regardless of subject matter but in this project, we had conceptual ideas and history to help in the process using the constructed site approach.

The rounded edges of the pages were inspired
from the rounded corners to the main central space.

Cover Book

This book was created based on the Japanese architectural principles of attention to details and clean lines with inspiration from Shuhei Endo’s Rooftecture S. Using Mylar, I took the idea of a roof wrapping around the house and made the cover of the book wrap all the way around its pages. Since the Mylar is slightly transparent, it gives a hint to the user of what to expect inside without showing it completely. I also used the angle of Rooftecture S’s roof to create the front cover and took inspiration from the small windows to make little openings in the cover for a hint as to what is on the inside.

The pages of the book are different sizes and get longer as the user gets further down into the book to represent how the house is triangular and goes from a narrow width on one side to a wider width on the opposite side. The pages are also progressively get longer so that the spine of the book represents a triangular shape to reflect the shape of the house and site in plan. This is a subtle feature because from the front face of the house, one cannot tell the house is a triangular shape. He would need to get closer in order to see the triangular shape. Since the house is small and Japanese architecture tends to be compact, I made the book fit nicely into the hand.

To bind the book, I used a simple Coptic stitch and attached the back cover with simple stitches so that it does not take away from the crisp lines of the book itself.

Book Diagram: Rooftecture S

One of the most prominent features of Rooftecture S by Shuhei Endo is the triangular shape of the house, which is derived from the site. To diagram this I tore off the back cover of the book and reattached it to form an elongated triangle by also using folded pages to accentuate the shape. The back cover also serves as a base and backside diagramming the use of the existing stone retaining wall into the design of the house.

The front cover and spine are kept as one piece to diagram how the roof wraps over the building, giving it the name “Rooftecture S”. I made a diagonal cut in the front cover to show the unique angles of the house, but kept the sides in its original state instead of angling them to keep the integrity of the book. The cover also does not have cuts other than the diagonal to keep what is inside hidden since the building itself has only small windows so people cannot see into the house from the outside.

I cut the visible pages to different sizes to show the different spaces within the house and excavated a skinny hole through the pages of the book to diagram the flow all the way through the building. This hole also represents the window at the short side of the house.

Overall, the book diagrams the house in a very literal sense, but is based mostly on the main shapes and gestures the house creates.

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.

Book Diagram

The main inspiration for the book diagram came from looking at a section of the house. The first thing that I noticed was a vertical shift that splits the house in half. This is not obvious looking at different views but with the section it becomes apparent that this move was intentional. This shift creates the overhang for the car to park under as well as creates room for a roof terrace at the top of the house. I wanted the book to ultimately have that same affect so I cut half of the pages and their spine in order to make that movement possible. Also from the section I noticed how the spine and covers of a book resemble the walls and roof of the house and saw that there is really nothing significant that interrupts that flow except the second floor window and the skylight. I was able to directly relate this to the components of the book and that is how I was able to decide on the orientation the book diagram would be in.

Lastly I wanted to somehow illustrate how light flows through the house. I felt like there was a connection between the skylight and the second floor window with the way light moves to and from those areas in between. Looking at interior pictures you can see how well lit the house is which I think can be attributed to the two windows I described. To show this in the book diagram, I cut a void into the pages between those areas which in turn illustrated the connection between the two light sources.

Book Binding

As with the diagram of the House in Seya, I chose the cover of the book to represent the shell of the house. In order to emphasize this, I designed the cover in such a way that it wrapped the entirety of the pages. This lead to an envelope-like cover that encases the pages. In this way, a new world can be discovered on the pages of the book once the cover is removed just as one can enter a new world when walking into the House in Seya.

To pattern the cover, I layered its planes with mylar by folding triangular pieces. I then used a stitching pattern of three lines to hold the pieces in place. This created a cover with varying opacity so that at some instances, the reader can catch a small glimpse of what is inside and at other moments, the pages are completely invisible. The angles of the triangle also allude to the angled roof of the house.

For binding the book itself, I used a simple spiral stitch that would allow the pages to lie flat when opened, making it easy to use. I also left the right edge of the pages slightly staggered to suggest the “unfinished” state the House in Seya was finished in.

Diagram: House in Seya

One of the main concepts of the House in Seya was that the house was its own in world encapsulated in a shell. In this world, there is open space with room for nature and the inhabitants to grow despite the small site. To represent this with a book diagram, I began by establishing the cover as representative of the shell, and the spine as the backside of the house because that is where the more introverted space can be found. Since the cover could only enclose three of the six sides of the book, I left a thin border of the pages to completely enclose the space inside the book.

Because the house does not simply have an entirely hollow interior, the space inside the book is divided into three sections to show how the space inside the house is organized. The middle section is the main space of the house making it the largest, and the areas above and below represents the bedroom and a multi-purpose room respectively.

Lastly, while the house is enclosed by it exteriors, windows are strategically placed to let in natural light and give limited views of the home within. To show this I cut four holes in the shell I created at moments where someone could look in and recognize that something was going on inside the book. However, in order to understand what is going on inside, it is necessary to open the cover, just as it is necessary to enter the house before getting the full view of what is inside.

Book N

The constructed book attempted to take some qualities of the Japanese house and cut book and integrate them in a new design. The main component of the book looked into the basic component of the studied house, which were the voids.

The cover of the book was one continuous piece that wrapped from the binding all the way around, and back to the place of origin. The cover served as a case for the book, reflecting the encasement of the house by the outer shell of the house. It did not close flat to convey the idea of it asking to be opened. The book was bound using the japanese method of stab binding. Once the outermost concealment is unveiled, the cover is revealed. Its pattern consists of 3 layers of mylar pages ironed together into a single one. Each page has the voids that were subtracted from a wall in the house cut out of it. As that page is flipped, two 2-ply bristol sheets follow it, then one mylar and two more bristol after. This is repeated 3 times to represent the 3 layered house and its division by the single mylar pages.

The pattern for the cover of the book was successful in that it represented an important overall concept of the original house, foreshadowing what the rest of the book is going to be about. Also, the stab binding did its job well, providing a secure binding for the book using a traditional Japanese style.The wrapping cover, however was ineffective in that it did not convincingly represent any part of the residence and provided a sort of second cover, causing some confusion. Finally, the size of the book did not correctly depict the house it is a different shape than the house, and makes flipping through the pages difficult.

Excavated Book

Juan Robledo

The cut book was representative of House N by Sou Fujimoto, the Japanese house I studied. It was made up of 3 shells, one inside the other. The voids refrained from defining a clear line between interior and exterior, while being strategically placed to give some privacy. That was taken into consideration when removing from the book.

The cover was left on, showing the encasement of the interior “shells” of the book. The pages of the book were separated into 3 parts, the inner-most representing the most private shell, while the two encasing it were reminiscent of the second shell, which encased the previously-mentioned one. This was done by cutting the single page that continued from one cover to the other and held together the pages. Following that, the pages were cut down the binding into 3 sections. Voids were also removed from the cover to reveal the pages within it; they were cut out of both the front and back of the book, as well as from the binding. This was done to show the 3-dimensionality of the book and at the same time personify the house it was mimicking. While each section had negative spaces, only a small void allowed visibility from one cover to the other to emphasize the privacy of the interior shell.

The overall book was successful in that it imitated the Japanese house, using the voids to reveal sections of each level within it. One change that could have been made, however, was to remove increasingly less of the pages from each section within the previous one to represent the increase in privacy from one to the next.