House without walls - an artistic highlight of the versatility of wood

We are very accustomed to the presence of wood around us in various forms, such as furniture, floors, ceilings, doors, windows. But for wood to take all these forms, moving from one to another as needed, I don't think it's common. And yet, such a place exists in the form of a house built entirely of beams of cedar wood. It's a bungalow, a small, primitive yet futuristic house, built from beams stacked endlessly. The result is a totally atypical place where everything can be anything: chair, bed, wall, window.

A construction that highlights the versatility of wood

The idea belongs to the architectural studioI am Fujimoto Architects and is based on the versatility of wood. In conventional architecture we find wood in construction as load-bearing structures and beams, but also as walls, floors, ceilings, furniture, doors and windows. Japanese designers have thought to go the other way round, to the essence. They put wood in a single form that embodies all its uses. It is in fact a weaving of the philosophy of wood in its essence with architecture.

The cedar beams used in the construction have a great impact. They go beyond the idea of wood and become existence itself. Each side of the beams is 35 cm wide, a size that fits the human body. So you can sleep on them, you can sit on them, you can live on them. It is a return to the essence that only Japanese culture can do, can think. It is the symbol of wood in the same way that the stone or the cherry blossom become the symbol of the garden.

In the beam house there is no place with a clear destination. You can't say this is the floor, this is the ceiling, look, here we have the walls. The place that was the floor can become a chair or a bed. Everything can be seen from different perspectives, levels are relative, and people reinterpret space according to the needs of the moment.

Here, the conventional rules of architecture are overturned. There are no plans, no point of stability. And it's all thanks to the versatility of wood. No other material could be subject to so many illusory transformations. Because no other material can be construction, strength structure, insulation, furniture and finishing at the same time.

This bungalow is no longer just about architecture. It is the wood itself, the essential wood, the total wood, which goes beyond the idea of architecture and construction, becoming a space of existence.