Architecture studio mA-style architects designed the ‘Light Walls House’ in Japan, Toyokawa. This minimal house is located in a shady place, so the architects  added skylights and  wooden roof beams around each side of the flat roof, that diffuse natural sunlight in a unique way.

“The design intended to create a space with uniformly distributed light by adjusting the way of letting daylight in and the way of directing the light,” said the architects.

The sunny interiors consist of four individual boxes that act as private spaces. Rectangular openings lead into the spaces, plus those at first-floor are accessed using ladders.

White-painted wooden panels clad the exterior of the rectilinear structure, including a sliding door that gives the house a corner entrance.

The architects say: “Considering each box as a house, the empty spaces in between can be seen as paths or plazas, and remind us of a small town enclosed in light. The empty spaces, which cause shortening or elongating of distances between people, are intermediate spaces for the residents, as well as intermediate spaces that are connected to the outside when the corridor is open, and these are the image of a social structure that includes a variety of individuals.”

Photos © Kai Nakamura