Clover House

“Clover House” is MAD’s first completed project in Japan. Clients Kentaro and Tamaki Nara would like to expand their school, and Clover House is where the clients’ school began as a humble operation from inside their family home. MAD proposed to retain aspects of the two-storey family home, and dynamically transform it into a fully developed educational institution.

The original wood structure are recycled and incorporated into the new design. Visibly present throughout the main learning area, a dynamic interior of translucent and enclosed spaces is formed to adapt to different teaching activities. Intimate spaces that create private and public in-between areas are formed, while windows are shaped in various geometries recognizable to the child’s eye, allowing sunlight to sift through and create an ever-changing play of shadows that encourage students’ curiosity and imagination. Clover House is constructed from a child’s point of view.

The new design’s skin wraps the old wooden structure like a piece of cloth, creating a blurry space between the new and the old – a pure white canvas of individuality that resembles a magical cave or a pop-up fort.