In the early post-war period in Japan, the development of public housing estates began in urban areas and gradually moved to the hilly areas, which had been untouched until then, in search of a larger piece of land. However, because of the lack of safety and economic efficiency of the development techniques, there was a need for developing methods that did not involve large-scale changes in the landform. This study deciphered the design intentions of housing complexes developed in Japan in the early post-war period by focusing on the topography and choice of housing types.
The subject of this case study is Ozasa-danchi, which was developed in the 1950s on an undulating hillside area on the outskirts of the city. In the previous paper, the architectural characteristics of the star house, which was the most widely used housing form in the development of the Ozasa, are described. Based on the results of this study, we studied the details of the land development work and discussed the relationship between the landform and the residential building form.
The development of the Ozasa was carried out based on the original landform and avoided large scale land modification. As a result, the terrain after development strongly reflects the characteristics of the original landform. Also, the layout of the residential buildings in the developed area corresponded to the characteristics of the original landform.
However, this is not a compromise approach to the design to cope with the technical constraints of the development. Rather, the design of the Ozasa should be viewed as a planned activity that interlocked land development and the layout of residential buildings. Each housing building type was selected in relation to the original landform of the site, and the details of the layout were determined by the treatment of the microtopography. In addition, some residential blocks had to be modified to fit the landform, and these were planned in an integrated manner with the land development and building construction. In this way, the interrelationship of civil engineering and architectural planning in the design of the complex resulted in an organic layout plan with varied topography and various housing types.
