This cool Japanese house dubbed Green Edge was named, quite literally, for a garden row that adds a natural element to this urban house plan. Japanese architecture firm mA-style Architects had a couple of main goals for this home located in Fujieda – incorporating light and air, while maintaining privacy. With the dense city surrounding it, the house takes shape as a floating solid facade surrounding glass walls and an interior courtyard, meeting both its objectives of nature and seclusion. The simple exterior makes way for minimalist interiors that are as cool as they are calm. Check it out.
We love the sheer minimalist of this house design, from its simple rectangular shape, to its clean white palette and total lack of details – or so it seems!
The home’s exterior is a large, solid mass separating it from the street and neighbors. The white wall doesn’t quite reach all the way down to the ground, leaving a strip of glass that exposes the private interiors to the outside world. Without compromising privacy, this open band of glass also floods interiors with natural light.
Between this unyielding exterior and the glass wall enclosing interiors, a rock garden encircles the home, providing the “green edge” for which this house is named.
This small private garden isn’t your typical “interior courtyard” in the sense that while it is technically inside the home, it literally encircles it.
Behind the white shell, floor-to-ceiling glass walls still manage to offer interiors an alfresco feel.
Inside, the combination of glass, greenery and white offer a totally serene setting – an unusual find in a busy city.
Minimalist interiors echo the exterior’s simple form, from its clean white palette to the simplicity in its details, and the earthy quality at ground-level (i.e. the natural wood floor).
The kitchen is small and efficient, offering all the essentials easily at hand – and out of sight when not in use. A place for everything, and everything in its place…
And regardless of where you look, you always have a view of the garden – your own private piece of nature at every turn.
Because the home is wrapped in nature, the views are ever-changing, and always enticing.
The bathroom sits outside the main living areas, to residents and guests have to venture through the garden to make use.
In the right light – or lack thereof – the house seems to disappear against the night sky, leaving only a glowing stretch of light along the ground.
Here’s how the house comes together.
A bird’s eye view.
mA-style Architects
photo credit: Makoto Yasuda, Nacasa & Partners
