30 Examples of Modern Japanese houses

21. Rainy Sunny House – by Mount Fuji Architects

Location: Tokyo, Japan
Completion Year: 2008

If the name of the project wasn’t interesting enough, the architect’s response to a changing climate in Tokyo sells this residential work. Using bare reinforced concrete for the walls, a creasing technique is used to keep the alkali in and stain off. The interior molding of the house is made with larch plywood that creates a textured effect on the concrete. On sunny days, the uneven walls cast strong shadows while on cloudy days, the house is dark and wears lace of raindrops.   

22. Moriyama House – by Ryue Nishizawa

Location: Tokyo, Japan
Completion Year: 2005

To know the Moriyama House is to know Japanese architecture. Designed by SANAA’s Ryue Nishizawa for Yasuo Moriyama, this house is modular and flexible in a minimalist fashion. Made up of ten separate steel prefab buildings in Tokyo’s suburbs, the Moriyama house is a multi-building residence ranging from one to three stories high. Each building acts as its room and serves a different purpose. Arranged at right angles to each other and the site, the volumes never touch and give generous room for exterior spaces.

23. Oshikamo House – by Katsutoshi Sasaki

Location: Aichi, Japan
Completion Year: 2011

The clients for the Oshikamo House requested a spatial plan that encourages family time and brings in light. The white metal facade is contrasted with exposed timber on the interior walls and partitions. Placing the family space in the center, the more private spaces sit on the edge of the site and gradually connect inwards. To bring in light, Sasaki designs a skylight above, along with two courtyards, illuminating the curves and changes of the house.

24. House of Many Arches – by 24d-Studio

Location: Kobe, Japan
Completion Year: 2020

Forever homes aren’t common in Japan due to large inheritance taxes and natural disasters. To compensate, a culture of scrap-and-build is adopted into Japanese architecture. 24d-Studio took the opportunity to do exactly that with the House of Many Arches. The 35-year-old wooden post-and-beam house was beautifully preserved through generations of natural disasters and rebuilt in 2020. The original shell and beams were reinforced to comply with current codes and arched walls became the house’s defining factor. 

25. Pit House – by UID Architects

Location: Okayama, Japan
Completion Year: 2011

The Pit House by UID Architects at first looks like a simple wooden box, but the interior is a surprising layout of varying heights and views. The organic interior form embraces and invites the outdoors, similar to a garden pavilion. The predominant materials are concrete and steel which make up the sunken cylinder of the common area and the support system for a floating box structure. A recurring ideology in Japanese architecture, the architects wanted the house to merge and coexist with the landscape.

26. Melt House – by Satoshi Saito

Location: Yao, Japan
Completion Year: 2017

The concept of Saito’s Melt House came from the client’s request to “feel green.” Located at the base of a mountain, the site is narrow at only 18 feet wide. The environment is no stranger in Japanese architecture and is celebrated through multiple projects. At the center of the home, a double-height courtyard acts as the multifunctional room, joining the two wings on either side. Despite a long and narrow plan, there is plenty of natural light and ventilation being brought into the house.

27. Stairway House – by Oki Sato

Location: Minato City, Japan
Completion Year: 2019

There’s no missing the intense stairway that cuts through the simple geometry of the Stairway House. However, this project by Sato is anything but austere. The client lives in the Stairway House with his immediate family and eight cats. From the street level, the house is a white, windowless cube, yet the south facade is entirely glazed and provides abundant daylight and views. The staircase serves multiple functions such as being outdoor furniture, a playground for the cats, and a display for plants. 

28. Shell House – by Tono Mirai

Location: Nagano Prefecture, Japan
Completion Year: 2018

Dubbed a pioneer of “earth architecture,” Mirai goes deep into a forest to produce a rounded cabin that appears to grow from the ground. The Shell House takes inspiration from the organic and sweeping force of the forest. Its domed structure is built using traditional Japanese wood crafting and was the most challenging part of the project. The different timber and earth materials were all locally sourced and adhere to Mirai’s strict building ideologies.

29. F Residence – by Go Fujita

Location: Nishinomiya, Japan
Completion Year: 2018

The design behind Fujita’s F Residence steers from a personal vision to take his hectic lifestyle into a more relaxed one by taking from distinctive Japanese architecture cues. Fujita mutes the home’s color palette, emphasizes negative space, and blurs the boundary between indoor and outdoor space. As you move up through the house, each floor grants more access to the outdoors. The doma, a traditional Japanese tiled entryway, is flooded in natural light from the double-height ceilings. 

30. Tree-ness House – by Akihisa Hirata

Location: Toshima, Japan
Completion Year: 2017

Nature and the landscape are pivotal concepts to the designing of Japanese architecture. With the Tree-ness House by Hirata, it’s no different. Inspired by the form of trees, Hirata breaks the typical cuboid form through this futuristic structure that provides residential housing, along with gallery and office spaces. Stacked in 3D, the concrete structure features gardens and stairs that seem to hang off the facade of the building. Tree-ness House truly stands out and beautifully blends nature into this multi-use, multi-level building.

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