Dornob | Design Ideas Daily

Slim Corridors & Courtyard Open Up Narrow Japanese Home

Posted: 27 May 2013 10:00 AM PDT

Areas with a long history of dense urban development have a lot of practice when it comes to maximizing light and openness within limited lots. This particular solution manages to make a single home feel like almost like a miniature neighborhood.

In fact Fujiwarramuro Architects (images by Toshiyuki Yano) explicitly modeled it on a microcosm of the city, with private spaces, shared public areas and street-like corridors stretching in between.

References to plazas and alleys, with windows looking out onto them, were quite intentional – each quadrant is conceived of as a building within a larger master plan, with repetitive materials used to tie it all back together.