How to Bring NATURE into the Home: A Japanese Stylist’s Remarkable House in the London Suburbs

I'm Matt Gibbett, co-founder of The Modern House. In this series we're homing in on the five key principles behind a well-designed home. So far we've learned about space with architect Simon Alford, we've looked at light with artists Langlands and Bell, and architect Laura G. Matthews has taught us about materials. You'll find all of these films on our channel. Today we're taking a look at the fourth principle, nature. We all know that nature makes us feel good, but how do we embed it into our daily lives? I've come to a family home in the London suburbs to find out. For Yasio Harvey, getting hands-on with nature is a way of life. She harvests plants from her garden to make sushi and she uses the seeds to create botanical artworks. She and her husband Phil have made a home where the materials, furniture and objects are all connected to the natural world. They've recently built this studio in the garden. Clad in charred timber and lined with plywood, it's a place to find peace and quiet in the company of nature. So Yasio, tell me about the garden, because obviously you really wanted to make sure you had a decent-sized garden, so tell me about that. I'm not a spider. Nature used to be a spider. I love flowers and plants. Especially I grow Japanese herbs which I can use for Japanese cuisine. That's the process of using something from the garden and putting it in a dish just to make some feel joy to do it. Can you tell us about what you've made for us today? Is this from the garden? Yes, so that's a traditional dish called kaki no hazushi, which is sushi in a parcel of the leaves. And the leaves are from a persimmon tree which I planted outside of the garden last year. Amazing. Well I'm going to try those, maybe not in front of the camera but I'm going to give it a go. So I love the floor. Did you guys put this in? It was carpeted throughout originally and we're not a huge fan of carpets. This was with a friend actually who was able to get a... Who was that? Yes, there were a set builder for theatre. Right. I was able to come in and knock this up really quickly. Checkerboard plywood. Yeah. Yeah, we thought about the pattern of the wood as well to make sure it's kind of coloured. Oh, so you've laid it in different directions. So that's really lovely. So just the grain comes through. In Japan you have sort of bare earth walls and powder and so just leaving the plaster as a nod in that direction without being too explicit about it. So tell me about the project that you've done here. What was the house like when you got here? There were some strange things like rock-shaped speakers in the garden but I think the best is just standard house. Yeah, standard suburban semi. Yeah. Okay and then how would you describe what you've ended up with? Non-standard suburban semi. What have we ended up with? Our house really. Yasuyo, I have to ask you about your work because obviously it's everywhere in the house. How do you describe what you do? If someone asks you at a wedding, Hi Yasuyo, nice to meet you. What do you do? What do you say? I would call it botanical styling maybe is the easiest way. No, I wouldn't say it's a profession that's particularly on the list when you go and see the careers advisory board. It's an incredibly beautiful thing that you do. Is that something that you've always done? When you were a child, would you take things from the garden and bring them in and rearrange them? Yes, while I was spending time in my grandparent's house, there was a lot of materials and you can source anything. You find it mountainside to rivers and the garden. My job was to make a bench for a praying place, which is the house shrine. For me, it's just one of the prayers, it's quite natural. It was somehow a duty as well to do it. Kintsugi is my new hobby and it's a perfect place for it. Is this what you've done here? So tell us what is Kintsugi? The chipped edges of the ceramic pottery, you can mend with lacquer and you put gold or silver powder to finish. You've done it in this one as well, so that's silver. Yes, that was completely broken and cemented. I provide most of the chips, but you have to get to do that. It's a symbiotic relationship. That's excellent. These must be more of your creations, Yasuyo? Yes, these are seeds from the garden. In the autumn season, you have to tidy the garden. It's so beautiful, it's a shame to throw them away. I tend to collect them and I was thinking what I could do with them. It's called a rose pot as I'm a collector, so I just arrange them in it. So you have seen this on the wall. Over time, it's kind of bleached. Lots of artists use them, so I grow them. I source the materials nearby or garden or surrounding. You don't have to buy expensive flowers from the market, but that's my policy. Yeah, locality is important. I remember you telling me last time we met that you'll be driving along, sometimes on a motorway, and you'll see something out there. It's tempting to pick, but you can't instantly stop, so you just remember that place, there is a nice plant. I know that Kettle's Yard in Cambridge is one of your favourite places, am I right? Yes, I like the setting. There are really famous paintings all over the house. And all of a sudden you see the pebbles, I like the contrast. I say in the book that jagged forms are actually not very nice to live with, straight edges, because they actually stimulate the amygdala and they stimulate a stress response. Whereas a chair like your Thonet rocker that you're sitting on there, it's very curvaceous, it's reminiscent of a snail shell and other forms found in nature, and actually that calms us and settles us down. I think this is kind of a combination with the modern architecture, all straight lines, but in that space has a kind of organic shape. Yeah, exactly right. The contrast is really great, isn't it? I specifically wanted to grow the plants that I can see in Japan. By the shed there's a lot of shade, so that's perfectly suitable for ferns and bamboos. Okay, so you wanted a reminder of your Japanese heritage. Yes, indeed. In the summertime, I spend most of the time in my grandmother's house, which is a mountainside with lots of nature, so it kind of reminds me of the time there. And then they were growing vegetables and rice, and we had to do lots of harvesting and planting, as well as praying there, little streams, catching fish. What about you, Phil? What kind of environment was it you grew up in? So, I'm from the West Country, so the village I grew up in had 300 people in it, very tiny. And it was similar in some ways, so I'd be off down the woods, and that's where we hung out, as it were. So, you've got a son yourself, Noah, who is he 10? Is that right? He's 10. So, how do you feel about his own childhood and his connection to nature and the landscape? Well, because we've got a dog and lots of big park around, so we often go for a walk, and he gets to play with balls, because our garden is not huge for the ball playing. When it was his last birthday party, we had it out here, with marshmallows by the fire, and his friends were eating in here. And they feel relaxed. Inside the house, there's a TV screen, so kids gravitate towards that, and video games and whatever. Out here, there isn't one, and you see them change in the way that they're interacting. They're having fun outside. These houses of this kind, they have two different extensions that are easily possible. One's right at the top, in the roof, and then it's this out the back. So, we're pleased when we found this place that this extension hadn't been done, so it was something that we could do when we got here. And it's interesting, because you'll see the layout of the wall at the back. Everybody, builders, architects, everybody assumed that we'd want to have big five-fold doors at the back, but we're telling them, no, we want to have one big window and a closed-off door to create the two sections. And so, it was really nice to do what we wanted, as opposed to what was already done. So, how did you set out to relate the house to the garden? So, there's kind of little details we started with, like the window here, and there's a square garden. It's very full now, but the square is reflected. There's four square beds here. That's about as much thought as we put into it, and we let it evolve from that point. We wanted a place here to sit, so we could look at the garden, because we knew we were going to do things with it. And if you've got a five-fold door, it's a door. You can't really sit in front of it or leave things permanently there. And then, on this side with the kitchen, just to have a sink looking out to the garden was important. And so, that kind of informed what we wanted to do. So, talk to me about this really beautiful water feature. Did you have that made? I bought them a spring and then the bowl. Separately? Yes. Okay. Because this height is perfect from the kitchen window to see the birds having the bath. So, you placed it sort of far enough away, but at the right height, so you can see them come and that's so nice. Yeah, it's a really good spot. And the plants are cut as well, to make sure that you can always see it. So, there's lots of places for birds to perch around, but also there's a good view through the bird bath. The plants look nice with the background of the charcoal, and then it's an inspiration from Peter Zunto's Serpentine Pavilion. Yeah, that really reminds me of this nice combination of plants and charcoal. Yeah, the green looks amazing. Tell us about this. This is basically acting like a gutter, isn't it? Yes. So, the rainwater runs down it. Yeah, it's nice to see the rainwater coming down. Yeah, exactly. And does it make a sound? Presumably, you hear it dripping into the bowl. We designed this together, and the idea was to have a space, and a space where we could go, a space where we could eat, a space where you could work, and, you know, be messy, leave it, shut the door, go back inside, those kind of things. In Japanese, it's called Naya, which is like a storage building, but it's kind of a multifunctional space that you can use wherever you want to. Yeah, it's absolutely beautiful. Oh, broken and creepy, yeah. Yeah, exactly. That's the theme again, isn't it? It used to be his work chair, and it's broken. Yeah, I broke that too. I think what really strikes me is the way that you've taken really humble things that other people haven't necessarily seen value in, and given them huge aesthetic value just by repurposing them, and by pairing them up with something from the natural world, I think it's... Yeah, and then if you touch it, it falls apart, and then it's also fine, because you can restructure again. Yeah, nothing's fixed, so they come together, and it's not balanced. I know some people are obsessed with balancing things, and that, it's more that it will stay as long as it can in that shape, in that position, and if it gets knocked down, maybe that's the time to change. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, like the season themselves. By the springtime, you get really nice sunlight from here, so it's a nice place to have a nap as well. On that ledge there. Oh, that's so nice. Yeah, and how does the garden change in the seasons, and how do you respond to that? I planted some cherry trees that it's really imaginable season, and springtime you get flowers, and in the autumn you get colours, leaves. Can we try these now then? What do you reckon? You guys must be starving. Yeah, please.