Cubo Design Architect Builds a House Around Light on Water

"In the coastal terrain of eastern Japan, where salt air drifts through bamboo groves and mandarin orchards slope toward the Pacific, Cubo Design Architect conceived 10M, a residence that makes water its organizing principle. The home features 56,000 square feet of gently inclined land, creating the stage for an architectural project structured entirely around its 65-foot swimming pool, which functions less as recreational amenity than as generator of light, rhythm, and atmospheric presence."

"The pool establishes the compositional spine, aligned deliberately with the citrus grove to the south. The architecture unfolds from this axis, all while keeping water as the home's focus. The surface of the water catches fragmenting sunlight, creating a sparkle perceptible from every interior space. The manipulation of spatial sequence draws directly from Sukiya-zukuri architecture, the restrained aesthetic tradition formed from Japanese tea ceremony spaces."

"The embedded tea room pushes this material and atmospheric precision through the function of the residence's terminus. It borrows views into neighboring bamboo while deploying traditional elements - bark-wrapped columns, natural plaster walls, compositional gestures sourced from the 16th-century tea master Sen no Rikyū - with the architects creating their own reinterpretation. The pared palette and minimal detailing function as perceptual training, heightening awareness of environmental shifts that richer surfaces might obscure."

Located on 56,000 square feet of gently inclined land in eastern Japan, the residence organizes all volumes around a 65-foot swimming pool that serves as the compositional spine aligned with a citrus grove to the south. The pool’s surface fragments sunlight, creating a sparkle visible from every interior. Spatial sequences borrow from Sukiya-zukuri traditions, employing compression and release to modulate perceived luminosity. An embedded tea room uses bark-wrapped columns, natural plaster, and gestures drawn from Sen no Rikyū as a terminus. A pared palette and minimal detailing sharpen sensory awareness of wind, water, bird calls, and surf. Functional elements—wine storage, guest quarters, and a fitness spa—are inserted with restrained economy.

Read at Design Milk