House O Hokkaido by Jun Igarashi Architects

Prostrate in a small forestry town of eastern Hokkaido, the House O is a strange single-family home that looks like a pile of scattered black boxes.

Designed for a young Japanese couple, the house is an enigmatic collection of boxes clad in black steel which intersect each other in a seemingly random fashion.

Architects: Jun Igarashi Architects
Location: Rubeshibe, Kitami, Hokkaido, Japan
Photography: Iwan Baan

Inspiration from architect:

Originally we designed the building orthogonally, but there was too much circulation, the daylight wasn’t good either, so the project required a more complex solution.

Lots of people pass by the site, so the clients wanted some privacy. We are interested in single-story buildings with larger floor areas, they make better houses – you can control the light and circulation better.