MDSKiyotoshi Mori + Natsuko Kawamura

This lot enjoys a view of the Tokyo skyline, but the frontage is extremely narrow. To overcome this problem the architects avoided including wing walls, which allowed them to open the facade up entirely with plate glass windows and doors. In standard Japanese wood houses, wing walls normally serve an indispensible role as bearing walls. Here the architects substituted arched colonnades positioned where they would not interfere with the layout of the home. These colonnades allow for one side of the building to be made up entirely of plate glass, but they also lend the space a distinctive character.