Can you imagine if every room in your house had its own garden? If you lived in a palace, mansion, or manor house, perhaps. But what if you lived in a 13-foot-wide, five-story house in a commercially dense section of Tokyo?
Composed of a series of structural slabs and glass walls, this house and workplace designed by Japanese architect Ryue Nishizawa appears wall-less and light-filled; perfect conditions for the plants in all those gardens.
Photography by Iwan Baan via Design Boom.
Above: The hard edges of the concrete slabs are softened by the abundance of green plants.
Above: Plants and curtains provide a screen of privacy from the urban street traffic.
Above: A plant-filled office provides pleasant working conditions.
Above: A curtain on a wraparound track separates the office and the bedroom on the second floor.
Above: Every room, from living room to bathroom, has a garden of its own—a pure luxury anywhere, but particularly in an urban environment.
Above: The staircase fits into a cutout in the concrete slab.
Above: A cutout on the fifth-story slab allows for extra-tall plants.
Above: A view to the sky above.
Above: The "wall-less" house allows light to flood into a very narrow house on a sliver site between two tall buildings.
Above: The architect's diagram aptly captures the spirit of the house.
For more on Japan, read about decidedly nontraditional bonsai at A Bonsai Revolutionary in Tokyo, and about a house surrounded by a courtyard (rather than vice versa) in Architect Visit: A Hidden Japanese Garden.
Updated from a post originally published March 5, 2013.
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