The Oranda-jima House is a pro-bono design by Martin van der Linden for the town of Yamada-machi, a town located on the central coastline of Japan’s Iwate prefecture. On March 2011 the town was almost completely destroyed by the tsunami. Following extensive consultations with the Yamada-machi authorities, it was proposed in February 2012 to establish an after-school house and community centre. The project is named after the island where in 1643 a Dutch ship, called the Breskens landed in the Bay of Yamada. An island in the bay was commemoratively called Oranda-jima or Holland Island.

Martin van der Linden studied architecture in the Netherlands, the UK and Japan, where he worked for the renowned Japanese architect Hiroshi Hara on the redesign of Kyoto’s main train station. In the mid 90’s, he was employed by the Japanese office of Cesar Pelli, and then became a design consultant to the Japanese Ministry of education’s privatised architecture office (EFI) from 1997-1999. Teaching at Waseda University and Tokyo University of Science for around 10 years, Martin established his own architecture practice, van der Architects in 2001. Martin has designed with van der Architects various projects ranging from corporate offices, housing to public facilities. All these projects are created with great care and attention to detail. Not only are the practical elements of the programme being taken into consideration but we are obsessed with the way users can have an authentic experience of the spaces that are designed.

Martin has designed with van der Architects various projects ranging from corporate offices, housing to public facilities. All these projects are created with great care and attention to detail. Not only are the practical elements of the programme being taken into consideration but we are obsessed with the way users can experience the spaces we design. The experience of space starts with mobility, a promise that slowly unfolds around us as we move through space. The experience is then filtered through the larger context surrounding the space. Architecture has the ability to create possible worlds through construction. However, I think that architecture should be a manner of looking at the context again and reinforce the unique contextual elements that are there. The uniqueness should not come from the shape of the space, although this could be an element of the design as well, of course. I think that uniqueness should consider the context to be the starting point. As such, architecture will act as a modal filter of context and will help to create a space, which, when walked through, helps us experience what in the end becomes the space’s identity. As such daylight, plays an important role in establishing a deeper experience with space. A flash of sunlight breaking through the clouds can dramatically alter a space. Lying on your back watching clouds pass by in a roof window, all these experiences with a space are what our architecture is about.