Transcriptive Dwelling

This project reimagines Karahori, Osaka’s historic wooden-dense neighborhood, as an adaptive circular settlement. Once shaped by clay-tile production and alley-based living, the area now faces aging houses, disaster risk, and development pressure. Instead of erasure, it uses “transcription” to preserve spatial and material memory through gradual renewal.
Parts of small wooden houses are dismantled, turning former alleys into shared semi-public spaces. Hidden interior partition walls are externalized as fire-resistant boundaries, forming safer clusters while retaining Karahori’s layered alley atmosphere.
Reused tiles and soil become fire-resistant walls, dismantled timber reinforces outer structural walls, and a porous inner roof brings light and airflow into shared alleys. These migrations create a local circular economy linked to the area’s tile-making history.
The project also transcribes social memory, allowing materials, behaviors, and memories to circulate through renewal.