Can a generational family of 7 find space to live on a small urban site?

Typically Japanese homes of this type are ingeniously planned, providing each and every room the program requires – however, with significant amount of space devoted to stairs and hallways, the actual living spaces are small and introverted, barely functional.

In this case, with a site only 3 meters wide and 12 meters deep, and surrounded on three sides by closely packed windowless buildings the challenge is to ensure each room receives ample natural light. Here we attacked the problem by pairing functions on each floor, so that living quarters can be opened to the entrance, to an exterior deck, to the living room, and to a roof deck.

In a real sense, there are no dead ends in this house, and the choice is not between moving from one room to another, but rather whether the rooms or spaces are connected or not. Further, an exterior deck on the second floor and a roof garden ensure that life in the home is not confined to the edges of the site, but expands to take in the entire neighbourhood.