Japanese Houses Reading Response 2: Reflection and Inversion / Hiroshi Hara

02 March 2020

Japanese Houses Reading Response 2

Article: Reflection and Inversion / Hiroshi Hara

Summary
Hiroshi Hara’s recent works are based on the paired concepts of “Reflection” and “Inversion”; quoting “light reflected on interior wall inverts the brightness of the space” as an analogy. Hara opined that “Reflection” is the simpler concept, while “Inversion” is more complex and requires violent manipulation. He achieved reflection with “Reflection House”, which is a successful step towards the realization of inversion.

Hara’s envision architecture to be an expression of apertures. Apertures liven up an enclosed space by controlling flow, communication and reflectivity between exterior and interior spaces. Halation through an aperture confronts the concept of darkness by producing a sudden inversion of brightness. The halation brings light into the interior, which becomes an expression of the outside world; whereby the brighter exterior is reduced to a spatial form of the building. Inversion virtually removed the façade to “expand” the house. This is of social significance because the dense urban fabric ensue no space between houses.

Inversion needs to reverse and replace traditional architectural concepts. An “Inversion House” aims to embed the city inside the home’s interior either through design or cognitively. An “Inversion House” needs to address the issue of a single aperture and air circulation to be liveable.

Opinion
Based on Hara’s definition, the shophouse typology is an “Inversion House”. The shophouse has narrow frontage, but significant depth; apertures like airwell and skylight inject halation and air circulation into the middle of the shophouse. In particular, the airwell inverse the interior into a courtyard functioning like a city square.

Although not a house, Hara succeeded in designing an “inversion arena” – Sapporo Dome. The retractable roof is an aperture that can invert the space. It is the first venue where ski can be competed indoor. The artificial turf and grass pitch can be switched in and out of the stadium.

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