“I can’t continue living in this situation.” I realized the pitfalls of a “design-oriented house” as soon as I moved in. The living room, just after the rainy season, turned into a plastic greenhouse in the middle of summer.

PRESIDENT Online

2023/12/02 15:00

*This article was written by Kazuhisa Fujiyama.What do architects design in homes?This is a re-edited version of a portion of ” (Chikuma Shobo).

Almost all houses have windows on the south side.

There is a window called a sweeping window.

I think you have one at your house too. The large sliding window that borders the garden and balcony is a sweeping window. The origin of the word is said to be to “sweep out” the dirt and dust inside a room. In the past, the term used to refer to low-height windows like today’s jimado, but over time, windows that were taller than one’s height also came to be called sukidashi-mado.

Western houses also have bay windows. However, unlike in Japan, they are not installed as a matter of course in every house. This has a lot to do with differences in building construction methods depending on the climate, but the story is too long so I won’t go into it here.

The special feature of the bay windows is that they are installed on the south side of the building. Of course, there are exceptions, but the windows in single-family homes generally face south.

I took a quick look around the residential area in my neighborhood.

As expected, almost all the houses had sweeping windows on the south side. Many houses have two walls around 1,800 mm wide with a wall in between. Beyond the bay window is probably the living/dining room.

I say “probably” because all the windows have curtains closed even though it’s daytime. It is also a thick drape curtain. Even though we have a large window facing south, it doesn’t let in any bright light or a pleasant breeze.

No, it’s not impossible. After all, when you live in a house with the curtains closed, the road in front of you is filled with people and cars passing by. I don’t want a suspicious person like me to look into my house.

I was tempted to take extra care and say, “If we at least use lace curtains, the light from outside will come in and make the room brighter.” But there wasn’t a single house that showed such an opening. . In some homes, the shutters were slammed shut, as if curtains alone weren’t enough.