Small House Tokyo

More than a simple collection of beautiful full-color photos of interiors and exteriors, Small House Tokyo provides would-be small property owners with a plethora of tips and suggestions on how to make the most out of what they've got.

Building small can be a sign of higher ambitions, and those who take the time to peruse these pages will undoubtedly grow to appreciate that creating a small home can be an amazingly positive and creative act, one which can enhance life in surprising ways.The Very Small Home presents stunning design advances in Japan. Eighteen recent houses, from ultramodern to Japanese rustic, are explored in depth. Particular emphasis is given to what the author call the Big Idea-the overarching concept that does the most to make the house feel more spacious than it actually is. Among the Big Ideas introduced here are ingenious sources of natural light, well-thought-out atriums, snug but functional kitchens, unobtrusive partitions, and free-flowing circulation paths.An introduction by the author puts the house designs in the context of lifestyle trends, and highlights their shared characteristics. For each project, the intentions of the designers and occupants are examined. The result is a very human sensibility that runs through the book. A glimpse of the dreams and aspirations that these unique homes represent and that belies their apparent modesty.The second half of the book is devoted to illustrating the special features in the homes, from clever storage and kitchen designs, to ingenious skylights and nooks. As with his earlier Small Spaces, Azby Brown has given home owners, designers, and architects a fascinating new collection of thought-provoking ideas.

Joel Beath and Elizabeth Price explore this question drawing inspiration from a diverse collection of apartment designs, all smaller than 50m2/540ft2. Through the lens of five small-footprint design principles and drawing on architectural images and detailed floor plans, the authors examine how architects and designers are reimagining small space living. Full of inspiration we can each apply to our own spaces, this is a book that offers hope and inspiration for a future of our cities and their citizens in which sustainability and style, comfort and affordability can co-exist. Never Too Small proves living better doesn’t have to mean living larger.

Winner of the 2016 Governor General's Literary Award for Young People's Literature — Illustrated Books Tokyo lives in a small house between giant buildings with his family and his cat, Kevin. For years, highways and skyscrapers have been built up around the family’s house where once there were hills and trees. Will they ever experience the natural world again? One day, an old woman offers Tokyo seeds, telling him they will grow into whatever he wishes. Tokyo and his grandfather are astonished when the seeds grow into a forest so lush that it takes over the entire city overnight. Soon the whole city has gone wild, with animals roaming where cars once drove. But is this a problem to be surmounted, or a new way of living to be embraced? With Tokyo Digs a Garden, Jon-Erik Lappano and Kellen Hatanaka have created a thoughtful and inspiring fable of environmentalism and imagination. Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.K.1 With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about key details in a text. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.K.6 With prompting and support, name the author and illustrator of a story and define the role of each in telling the story. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.1.7 Use illustrations and details in a story to describe its characters, setting, or events.

Japanischer Wohnbau faszinierte und fasziniert ganze Architektengenerationen. Gerade die kleinen, sehr konzeptionellen Einfamilienhäuser zeigen neben stringent umgesetzten Wohnkonzepten die grosse Experimentierfreudigkeit in Bezug auf Raumkonstellationen und Materialien und die Fähigkeit auch den kleinsten Raum zu organisieren. Sie sind wie Minilabore, die die Kreativität japanischer Architekten ebenso deutlich zeigen, wie den Umgang mit dem Ephemeren und den vielfältigen Ebenen der Abgrenzung zwischen öffentlich und privat. Durch die Schnelllebigkeit der japanischen Städte entsteht ein riesiger Architekturfundus für den Westen, den Small Houses dokumentiert und dem Leser gleichzeitig die japanische Kultur zugänglicher macht. Kleine Häuser stellt japanische Wohnhausarchitektur vor und richtet sich an Architekten, Innenarchitekten, Studenten und interessierte Laien. Der Fokus liegt dabei auf der Präsentation kleiner Häuser, vorwiegend Einfamilienhäuser. Die Auswahl der Projekte stellt eine Mischung namhafter Architekten, wie zum Beispiel Tezuka Architects oder Atelier Bow-Wow dar, zeigt aber auch ausserhalb Japans noch wenig bekannte Büros. Zu den einzelnen Projekten gibt es Vertiefungen, die dem Leser den kulturellen und gesellschaftlichen Kontext sowie den spezifisch japanischen Umgang mit bestimmten Architekturelementen nahebringen. Auf die Darstellung von Details, die in der Regel ausserhalb Asiens keine Relevanz haben, wird verzichtet. Der Fokus liegt auf dem realisierten Wohnkonzept, das mittels Bild- und Übersichtsplänen (Grundrisse, Schnitte) dargestellt wird.

A survey of the most innovative new houses built in Japan.

Small houses are no longer synonymous with cheap houses and lack of privilege. Instead, they symbolize a range of culturally coded values: compactness, efficiency, discrimination, discreteness, minimalism. Opening with a detailed exploration of the social and historical background behind compact housing in the twentieth century, this book goes on to feature thirty-seven illustrated case studies that represent some of the best examples of small houses built worldwide within the past decade. Plan areas range from 75 to 1600 square feet and each project embodies a particular design approach. The case studies are organized into three chapters-Rural Retreats; Urban and Suburban Bases; and Small Clusters and Multiples-and include work by such architects as Toyo Ito, Herzog and de Meuron, Simon Ungers, Enric Miralles, LOT/EK, and Kazuyo Sejima. The book includes over 300 full-color photographs illustrating the houses' interiors and exteriors as well as detailed plans.

Small Spaces is about living comfortably and using space wisely, and where better to find ideas on that subject than Japan, one of the world's most urban and densely populated countries? Tokyo resident Azby Brown, a distinguished architect and designer, has assembled dozens of creative solutions to space and storage problems, illustrating them with photographs and plans of actual living environments in contemporary homes. The key to his approach is what might be called "The Three Cs "--compact, comfortable, and convenient. Use of space is reconsidered, with easy living always the uppermost goal. A living room is opened up by creating level changes or "joining it with the exterior." A staircase can double as a chest of drawers, a space beneath the floor can serve as a kitchen pantry or hiding place for a disappearing bed: an adjustable table can serve different purposes at different heights. From top to bottom, in bedroom, bathroom, kitchen and hall, Azby Brown presents solutions to the problems of inner space, illustrated with dozens of full-color photographs, drawings, and architectural plans. Small Spaces will be a lifesaver for all those with growing families, shrinking resources, and limited room to grow--or indeed anyone who wants to transform a disorganized, cluttered environment into an orderly, attractive living area.