Why Understanding Your Client is of Great Importance

Design, can be a very personal and meaningful art for many individuals. Hence, it’s of great importance to understand the true wants of the client and what emotions the design must bring to him/her. Eastern Design office got a special order from a client who was quite specific in what the architecture must stand for… this is his story and the resulting architecture based on his wants.

“A house awaiting death,” the client explained to the Eastern Design office. “I will die in 15 years. It will be a house awaiting that death. The building is fine as long as it lasts 15 years. Something small would be good…I have found the place. A patch of land on a peninsula facing East. I’m glad the land faces east. I hate the sunset. When I die it won’t be sunset, it will be sunrise. When the final moment comes, I will face the sea and depart on a ship flashing towards death. It’ll be a time revealed after death.”

This is what the client ordered for his house. A view of the magnificent sea in the east where the sun rises. This is the land he chose to live out his final years. “The portion of the sea we have captured encompasses the peninsula that appears on both sides of the site.” Says Eastern Design office. "He wants to anchor his life before he sails away from the sea coast flashing towards an unknown shore. This is the house we are going to design. How do we interpret his message? We are not only designing a house, but are creating the port from which his liberated mind will depart across the ocean. This is what our work must encompass. Therefore, this house sees waves."

Eastern Design wants to make you think that the waves are a part of the interior of the house and not just another house which is open to the sea. "We were not satisfied to design a house with a sea view just because the seacoast is a mere 150 meters away. The sea must be incorporated into the open space of the house."

"This form draws in waves. This window captures waves. In this house. waves … are never the same throughout the day…." The design team wants to through their architecture expose the different moods that water and its waves bring.

"It is not a boundless steady blue ocean. The tide, bubbles, and grains of sand are constantly emerging. Unsteady waves, the solitude and calmness of a placeless and solitary man, these are what we want to capture in this new house. Everyone knows it is not a vague and limitless sea. It is also not a horizon. The sea is “the appearance of waves”.

"People want to know the meaning of the sea. The architecture will reveal this meaning."

The site, facing east, is 440 m2 with a floor space consisting of 73 m2. The following is a brief list from Eastern Design of postures that a person assumes when watching the waves:

・Watch the waves while swaying in a rocking chair
・Watch the waves to observe them while eating and drinking wine.
・Watch the waves and sink into them while sitting on a couch.
・Watch the waves alongside your body as you walk around the room.
・Watch them while talking and rolling in laughter with friends
・Watch the waves coming to water’s edge while reclining on the wooden lounge,

These tangible activities and the places they occur governed the form of the architecture. The way to appreciate the appearance of waves can be designed based on this explanation of the house:

Each posture is different → Different heights necessary to capture the waves → Various shapes of windows → changing appearance of the waves.

Here are the Images of the Architecture with further Information:


The ebb and flow of the tide changes with the seasons and the time, but the distance from the site to the waves is generally about 150 meters. The height of the floor is nearly 8.6 meters from the horizon and was chosen as the perfect height to view the waves from a sitting position.

The coastline where the site is located is beyond the scope of this round map. This round map encompasses the area of our activity in Japan. This project takes us to a beach beyond sublime Suzuka mountain range, wonder past the ravines of the Ise Penninsula, and exceeds the boundaries of this circle!


We have hoisted ship anchors on the wall. A two-pronged anchor is suspended from the wall and a four-pronged anchor is fixed to the top of a type of narrow bearm. They are the symbols of a man who has lived a life of relentless rage.


Early morning light streams through polygonal windows. With the overlapping windows and accumulation of light and shadow, the entire building erupts in a hymn to the morning.


This is a photograph of the vista that comes bursting out when you open the front door. The front door is at the apex of a V-shaped wall. When the door is opened, the windows overlap, and the sea overlaps.


At 7:06 in the morning. The sun ascends from the center of the two layers of windows. The architecture has captured the sun.

Photography by Koichi Torimrua.

Continue reading here: Shanghai Expo 2010 Finland Pavilion: Kirnu

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