Designing a dental clinic and residence in rural Nagano, I sought to create a space where professional care and private life could coexist in quiet dialogue—with separation, dignity, and light.
On the edge of a tranquil village in Nagano, surrounded by rice fields and peach orchards, I was asked to design a combined dental clinic and residence for a client—a practicing dentist. The brief required a structure that would accommodate two distinct yet interrelated worlds: the precision and professionalism of clinical care, and the quiet domesticity of private life. My task was to keep them both connected and apart.
The design began with a folded concrete slab, 300 millimeters thick, forming a zigzag geometry across the site. This single, continuous move generated alternating sequences of enclosed volumes and open courtyards. The enclosed spaces house the clinic, the dentist’s private residence, and a waiting lounge. Between them, open courtyards introduce daylight and distance—spatial buffers that also serve emotional and psychological functions.
To connect the interior volumes, I introduced two transparent glass boxes—pathways and entry vestibules that float between inside and outside. These transitional spaces allow both the dentist and patients to move between functions while remaining momentarily in contact with the weather, light, and landscape. The sense of passing through air and sky, even briefly, creates a shift in mood. For the dentist, it offers detachment from the clinic. For patients, it softens the tension of anticipation.
The building’s structure employs a post-tensioned concrete system. Steel cables run through ducts embedded within the slab, then are tensioned after the concrete has cured. This allows for beamless, column-free spans across the interior. The result is an open, durable shell—engineered for a lifespan exceeding 200 years—while leaving the internal layout free to evolve over time. Should the clinic ever change function, the architecture is already prepared.
Both exterior and interior surfaces are painted white. Set against the vivid greens of summer rice fields and their golden hue in autumn, the building reads as a quiet, geometric silhouette—a measured insertion into the landscape. At night, three large glass openings release light outward: a soft, low-temperature glow from the residence and waiting lounge; a cooler, brighter light from the clinic. These luminous tones establish a gentle contrast, visible from afar in the absence of signage.
In fact, the village prohibits commercial signage. But this building does not need one. Its presence is its identity—expressed through material, light, and rhythm.