Naked House
Saitama, Japan · 2000
Photo · Photo by Hiroyuki Hirai
A key precedent for flexible residential design and lightweight envelopes, demonstrating how movable, self-contained room boxes can configure a double-height translucent hall.
- What we like about this project
- The flat roofs of the mobile box rooms function as elevated play or seating platforms accessible by ladders.
Materials
- translucent-plastic
- corrugated-polycarbonate
- wood
- steel
- linoleum
Visual identifiers
- translucent-walls
- movable-rooms
- mobile-boxes
- double-height-hall
- shigeru-ban
Style tags
- minimalist
- high-tech
- flexible-space
- lightweight
Visual tags
- translucent-envelope
- flexible-layout
- micro-architecture
- japanese-minimalism
- lightweight-structure
- Geometry
- A long, double-height linear volume with a gabled roof profile. The side walls are composed of vertical translucent panels supported by a light steel frame. Inside, independent, mobile box-like rooms on wheels sit within the open floor plate.
- Facade system
- Double-skin translucent corrugated plastic panels on a light steel frame.
- Structural guess
- Lightweight steel frame with timber-framed mobile interior units.
- Spatial scale
- Double-height residential scale, with a wide-open floor plan that accommodates freestanding micro-rooms.
- Lighting
- Soft, highly diffused daylight filtering through translucent double-skin walls, supplemented by a clear glazed end wall showing outdoor greenery.
- Atmosphere
- A serene, glowing, and weightless atmosphere defined by diffused white light and clean geometric volumes.
- Environmental context
- An open interior hall that feels visually connected to the changing light of the outdoors through its translucent skin.
- Spatial experience
- The space feels incredibly light, open, and fluid. The translucent walls diffuse daylight to create a shadowless, glowing envelope, while the movable room-boxes allow the interior layout to be reconfigured dynamically.
- Composition rhythm
- The repeating vertical steel studs of the translucent walls create a steady, rhythmic framework flanking the open central floor.
- Style reading
- Japanese high-tech minimalism
- Program
- Single-family residence
- Perspective
- Interior Spatial
- Discipline
- architecture
- Materials
- translucent-plastic, corrugated-polycarbonate, wood, steel, linoleum
- Visual identifiers
- translucent-walls, movable-rooms, mobile-boxes, double-height-hall, shigeru-ban
- Style tags
- minimalist, high-tech, flexible-space, lightweight
- Visual tags
- translucent-envelope, flexible-layout, micro-architecture, japanese-minimalism, lightweight-structure
- Geometry
- A long, double-height linear volume with a gabled roof profile. The side walls are composed of vertical translucent panels supported by a light steel frame. Inside, independent, mobile box-like rooms on wheels sit within the open floor plate.
- Facade system
- Double-skin translucent corrugated plastic panels on a light steel frame.
- Structural guess
- Lightweight steel frame with timber-framed mobile interior units.
- Spatial scale
- Double-height residential scale, with a wide-open floor plan that accommodates freestanding micro-rooms.
- Lighting
- Soft, highly diffused daylight filtering through translucent double-skin walls, supplemented by a clear glazed end wall showing outdoor greenery.
- Atmosphere
- A serene, glowing, and weightless atmosphere defined by diffused white light and clean geometric volumes.
- Environmental context
- An open interior hall that feels visually connected to the changing light of the outdoors through its translucent skin.
- Spatial experience
- The space feels incredibly light, open, and fluid. The translucent walls diffuse daylight to create a shadowless, glowing envelope, while the movable room-boxes allow the interior layout to be reconfigured dynamically.
- Composition rhythm
- The repeating vertical steel studs of the translucent walls create a steady, rhythmic framework flanking the open central floor.
- Style reading
- Japanese high-tech minimalism
- Program
- Single-family residence
- Perspective
- Interior Spatial
- Discipline
- architecture