The Japanese have long endured crowded cities and scarce living space, with homes so humble a scornful European official once branded them rabbit hutches.
But in recent years, Japanese architects have turned necessity into virtue, vying to design unorthodox and visually stunning houses on remarkably narrow pieces of land. In the process, they are also redefining the rules of home design.
Few Americans would consider a parking-space-sized lot as an adequate site to build a house. But in Japan, homes are rising on odd parcels of land, some as tiny as 300 square feet.
Yet the term “house” doesn’t really do justice to these eye-catching architectural gems, fashioned from a high-tech palate of materials like glittering glass cubes, fiber reinforced plastic and super-thin membranes of steel.
More With Less
The need to do more with less space has sparked a boom in house designs that are as playful and witty as they are livable. One of Japan’s leading designers of kyosho jutaku, or ultra-small homes, is Tokyo architect Yasuhiro Yamashita.
“People tend to think of homes simply in terms of floor space. We architects think in 3-D.” Yasuhiro Yamashita, Tokyo architect
“If you tried to build a normal house on a super-small plot of land, it would end up being really cramped. So in order to make the house as roomy as possible, we have to think up new structures and assembly,” Yamashita says.
Ultra-small homes conserve space by dumping conventional elements like entranceways, hallways, inner walls and closets.
Windows, in a variety of shapes and sizes, are scattered across a wall, or concealed near the base. A bathroom is separated by just a curtain. Furniture can be folded into the wall, allowing a single room to serve multiple purposes.
Designers indulge in fantasy, like asymmetrical walls, cantilevered floors, or cover their houses in a translucent skin, in order to exploit all available natural light.
Yamashita built a long, skinny, cathedral-like futuristic home on a sliver of land just 40-feet wide, and named it “Lucky Drops.” (more…)
