Earth Restaurant and House designed by Junya Ishigami
Japanese architect Junya Ishigama has completed an unusual project that he worked on for nine years. This is a cave-like house-restaurant. It is located in the Japanese city of Yamaguchi. The building illustrates the trend of a new type of land construction, for which the researchers predict a greater future due to the transition to sustainable forms of architecture.
Despite its relatively small size, it took three years to design and six years to build. The result is an innovative facility that combines archaeological excavation with reinforced concrete structures.
Ishigami proposed a radical construction method. He excavated an elaborate moon-like landscape from the pits. These excavations are held together by reinforced concrete pillars and have a planned configuration of interconnected "caves". The total area of the extraordinary building is about 200 square meters.
The restaurant and the living area are separated by three small courtyards. The restaurant provides five seats at the main counter, and 12 small tables around the cavernous interior.
The house, which also looks like a cave, has two bedrooms, a large open space with a dining table and a living room. In the small kitchen, the table and sink are made of polished concrete. All the gaps between the irregular structures were 3D scanned so that the window and door frames were precisely made for each gap.
This project is significantly different from its traditional environment. Ishigami turned the family home into a strangely shaped lake visible from the outside. The organic outline of the house is barely visible from the ground, and the sculptural design is only visible when entering the cave.