With our city now so laughably unaffordable, thousands of Vancouverites are stuck imagining wonderful homes instead of living in them. Spaced is a record of our minds wandering the world of architecture and design, up and away from the unrewarding realities of shoebox condos, dark basement suites, sweet f~ck all on Craigslist and three levels of government that couldn’t give a damn.

(via) The so-called “Tree-ness” house in Tokyo’s Otsuka neighbourhood rises up from the street like a concrete organism, twisting and sprouting limbs in tree-like fashion. Designed by architect Akihisa Hirata, it was constructed as a home for a couple of big shots in the Japanese art scene. The ever-rising, outwardly haphazard stack of cement boxes creates a seemingly endless number of nooks, landings, corners and stairways. Finding one’s way inside at first must be something of a challenge!

There are a lot of places we’d could put this house if it were lifted up from it Japanese foundations and set down in Vancouver. I think the most appropriate place would be on one of the residential conduits to Ramenland, half a block off Robson Street close to its junction with Denman Street in the West End.

All images © Vincent Hecht