House Beyond
2001-

An autonomous space set in a steep-slope of a Japanese cypress wood, to be used as a working room or study for artists and writers. An attempt to revive the lumbering industry and the depopulated region by introducing a colony of artists by making use of the wood which was forested and then left half abandoned after World War Two (due to the run-down of the lumbering industry). An associated project of Haizuka Earthworks Projects.

The cypress tree that grows straight up in a steep-slope is used as post, and a beam is laid horizontally across to connect several of them, making a mesh-like structure, on top of which a box-type residence built on the ground is wired up and placed.

In legal terms, the residence does not base itself on the ground, and therefore is not an architecture, but a workpiece clinging to the tree/creature (likewise to the dragon above the elephant's back)

The structure and residence are not fixed in order to dissolve load powers such as wind or earthquake (several hits of typhoon have already proved the validness of this structure). In emergencies or need of repair, it is possible to descend the residence to the ground.

Utility boxes such as toilets or kitchens are occasionally added and are connected to each other, forming a group of architectural construction on top of the trees.

The electricity is obtained by hydro-electric generation from the mountain stream nearby.

The potential of creating architecture is the possibility of existing independently from any specific external place (time or space). In other words, the potential of creating a world where no world exists, and time and space where no time and space exist.

For instance, take Noah's ark (an architecture which lost the ground, becoming a ground in itself which carries the entire environment and all creatures), or the flying granary depicted in the Shigisan Engi Emaki/Tobikura scroll (a granary which flies freely to any place).

The HOUSE BEYOND is not a mere TREE HOUSE. It is not the thing called by the name of TREE HOUSE which tries desperately to bind (tie) itself to the tree in the hopes of becoming fixed and parasitized to it, or which kills the tree, stroking it to the ground in place of an ordinary stake. In short, it does not force any selfish fantasy to the nature and ground, in order to control them. HOUSE BEYOND is an architecture which does not depend on (or is bound to) any basis, and therefore is in itself a prototype of time and space, capable of appearing in any place, to which the name of Ark or archetype fits precisely.