Contemporary Design Residences｜Custom Home Examples by Architectural Offices12Picks Author: Qurasuki Editorial Department

In contemporary design homes, spatial layouts tailored to modern living and poised expressions born from the treatment of materials and light create a striking impression. By harmonizing architectural elements—such as capturing light through large openings, utilizing spatial voids, and combining diverse materials—a clean and uncluttered living environment emerges. Another key feature is how the overall configuration, including furniture and lighting, articulates the individuality of the home. Even with restrained ornamentation, rich expressions can be achieved through material textures, shadows of light, and spatial continuity. We introduce custom-built examples by architectural firms to illustrate how contemporary design is expressed architecturally in real residences.

Residence in Moriguchi In-Ex Design Co., Ltd.

Situated close to a shopping arcade, this is a “windowless house” built on a mere 19-tsubo hexagonal site. The building wraps around the full perimeter of the lot, creating a quiet interior world cut off from the street’s bustle. Exterior spaces are inserted at both ends of the two-storey volume, and living areas are arranged along the circulation that connects them. Without distinct room partitions, the spaces are loosely zoned by use and activity, accommodating the occupants’ flexible patterns of living. An inventive urban dwelling, it feels closed yet conveys a rich sense of spatial expansiveness.

Bud Atelier Mana

This house stands in a quiet residential neighborhood in Naha and makes use of Okinawa’s climate and regulations governing roof pitch. A sequence of areas reminiscent of “buds” or “swelling” protects privacy from the surroundings while creating a home that opens inward. The megaphone-shaped rooms create diverse places for inhabitation despite being arranged as a single room. Openwork brickwork guides wind and light, along with ever-changing shadows, creating a cool and tranquil environment.

yakh 「ha」 hosaka hironobu architect associate

This residence, realized through meticulous deliberation, is imbued with a quiet dignity. Strategically placed picture windows gently link spaces, blurring the boundaries between interior and exterior and between near and distant views, thereby generating a rich sense of depth. At the heart of the home is a three‑story atrium, creating an impressive volume in which light and shadow shift over time. Details refined with care down to the smallest elements shape the very atmosphere, delivering a refreshing living environment where light and breezes circulate comfortably.

W Residence Masahiko Sawamura Architect and Associates

A house where a gentle breeze passes through.

POCCO — Excellence Award, Residential Interior Coordination Contest YIA Ishiue Yoshihiro Architectural Design Office

This residence finds new value in circulation spaces such as corridors and staircases. At the center of the house is an atrium-like inner garden ('uchi-niwa') into which light pours from a skylight. While serving the functions of the entry and the stair circulation, it is conceived as an interior garden where plants can actually be grown. Concrete-finished floors and a spatial arrangement that blurs inside and outside create an environment that brings nature close at hand. Rather than merely lining up private rooms, the design gently links them through generous shared spaces, fostering a sense of family presence and continuity of daily life.

House in Miyakojima Abax Architects

This is a plan with the first floor occupied by a tenant and the residence located on the second floor. The spacious living room flows onto a large terrace, producing a seamless indoor–outdoor space used as outdoor living. At the suggestion of the design-loving client, distinctive materials were introduced throughout to compose a dynamic, expansive volume. It is an open, enjoyable home where friends naturally gather.

wish *studioLOOP Architects

This home for a parent and child stands on a site bordered by fields to the east and west. A simple configuration—with the LDK and wet areas on the first floor and the bedrooms on the second—is covered by a large roof extending down to the foundation, creating eave-like areas that connect the interior and exterior, including a void, storage, and space for building equipment. The roof and exterior walls are unified through the use of the same material, forming an east–west elongated triangular volume. By limiting openings on the north side and drawing light in through skylights and south-facing windows, the home offers a quiet and embracing living environment.

Karuizawa Counterpoint PODA Architects

A villa built on a sloped site in Karuizawa, where an undulating concrete roof, stepped floors, and curved walls bring a time-based experience of strolling through the forest into the interior. Pursuing "freedom and the unpredictable," the house is designed so its interior cannot be easily anticipated from the exterior; the roof transforms along the approach into an arch that covers visitors and the roof over the parking area offers an immediate "mountain walk." The roof’s undulations are reflected in the ceiling, and terraced stepped floors and trunk-like curved walls with niches containing bookshelves, a kitchen, and a fireplace create varied behaviors and shifts in sightlines, allowing one to experience expansive views and a polyphonic landscape.

House in Tondabayashi Kumi Inoue Architects

This residence weaves a new living environment while inheriting the existing house’s furniture and lighting, garden stones, and plantings. With the theme of providing appropriate places for both the occupants and their belongings, we carefully designed a comfortable spatial relationship for a mother and daughter. The living–dining–kitchen (LDK) is placed at the center of the home, with private rooms arranged around it. Alcove spaces that connect the private rooms act as places to accommodate old and new furniture and fittings, generating a rich sense of depth in the space. The inherited garden stones and hedgerow resonate with the new architecture, forming a warm home that gently links memory and the future.

Seaside Shell House Takeshi Hirobe Architects

This weekend house stands near the coast of Minamiboso, on a site surrounded by a beach, a breakwater, and neighboring residential lots. A courtyard has been planned to bring in the sea and sky while blocking views from the surroundings. Inspired by a shell on the beach, the house is formed as a multifaceted timber shell that continues seamlessly from the walls into the roof. The structure is exposed inside, creating a space that changes with the light from the skylights and courtyard, together with the sound of the waves.

Uchi no Uchi Mitsuhiro Kojima Architects

A residence inspired by an environment like a "blank" residual open space where the sky opens widely, located at the back of a densely built residential area. For a family of five who enjoy outdoor play, the aim was to create spaces that connect with the outdoors and the neighborhood while allowing family members to sense one another. Generous gardens are provided to the north and south of the building, and a multipurpose doma space with no predetermined use is positioned at the center. By gently connecting to the gardens and each room, it becomes a place where the family naturally gathers. In addition, by opening to the neighborhood while maintaining an appropriate distance from the road and adjacent properties, the design fosters opportunities for community interaction and simultaneously enhances the richness of both the dwelling and the street.

Steps III Hirotaka Sato Architects

This timber house for a couple stands on a narrow lot facing an alley. By combining four U-shaped structural walls with floors at different heights, the continuous sequence of changes in level creates rich spatial depth and open sightlines within a limited floor area. Based on a structural system that can be adapted to suit the residents’ lives, the spaces were developed in response to the site conditions and the occupants’ lifestyle. The project proposes diverse scales and flexible ways of living within a small urban home.