House with a Passage Doma｜Custom Home Examples by Architectural Offices7Picks Author: Qurasuki Editorial Department

In a home with a passageway doma (touri-doma), the doma is planned as an important space piercing through the residence rather than a mere entryway space. Seen in traditional Japanese housing, touri-doma were utilized as places connecting outside and inside, allowing people, breezes, and light to pass through. In contemporary residences, their roles expand further, sometimes incorporated as spaces where sightlines escape from entryways to gardens or as grounds connecting family circulation paths. Through floor materials, ceiling finishes, and relationships with adjacent rooms, the doma heavily sways the impression of the home. It also serves as a place where lifestyle individuality easily manifests, such as placing hobby gear or storing bicycles. Homes with passageway doma exhibit ingenuities generating rich spaces while gently connecting inner and outer boundaries. We introduce how this charm is expressed in custom homes by architectural firms.

smoke hut Yoshihiro Ito Architect & Associates

This home stands amid a tranquil rural landscape. To embrace the rice fields stretching out to the south and the distant mountain ranges, a generous roof was set over the house, allowing it to blend gently into its surroundings. In response to the desire to operate a small shop, a through earthen-floored passage was incorporated into the home, creating a configuration in which the shop and daily life are naturally connected. It is a space that feels both like a home and a shop, and both like a shop and a home, with a sense of calm and softness.

House with Slanted Lattice an Archi-Lab. First-Class Architect Office

Built on land passed down through generations, this is a rebuilt house for a child-rearing family. Confronting the challenging condition of a densely developed site enclosed by neighboring buildings and walls, the building is set at an angle to the lot to capture light and breezes from multiple directions. The resulting residual voids establish an appropriate separation from the surroundings and nurture a gentle connection with the local community. Internally, sightlines and circulation are deftly orchestrated to create a calm residential environment that preserves privacy from external views. On a site where old and new modes of living intersect, this home allows nostalgia and contemporary life to coexist.

House in Shimogamo Echizen Design Laboratory

A residence that responds to the historic townscape of Kyoto’s Shimogamo while contemporarily reinterpreting the ambiguity and flexibility inherent in Japanese architecture. Through eaves, a through-earth-floored space, and wet-edge verandas, the house gently connects inside and outside, bringing changes in light, wind, and the seasons into everyday life. Its spacious, non-prescriptive configuration responds flexibly to the growth of its inhabitants and the passage of time. Rather than a completed vessel, the house is designed as a “place” that continually nurtures relationships among people, the environment, and everyday life.

House in Obama ARCHIXXX Satoru Shinno Architectural Design

A residence in Obama City, Fukui Prefecture, for a family that runs a steel fabrication plant. The layout and materials were selected by carefully considering the sense of distance from the adjacent factory. Inside, a circulation route was planned around a handmade Japanese-style room constructed with steel frames, allowing the family to move freely throughout the house. Steel furniture and staircases made by the family themselves are placed throughout, creating a dialogue between the presence of steel as a material and the warmth of craftsmanship. By bringing the activities of the factory into the life of the home, this is a richly lived-in residence where the character of the family comes alive in every detail.

House of Hope Tada Architectural Design Office

This residence is a renovated 50-year-old house reborn as a private house for richly enjoying time alone. Making use of light pouring in from a skylight, the first floor is laid out as a one-room space centered on a doma (earth-floored zone). The living room, work space, kitchen, and bathroom are loosely connected, creating a deep, open spatial composition. On the second floor a training space reminiscent of a dance studio has been provided, with design features throughout to enable daily physical activity. It is a quiet retreat for restoring body and mind while enjoying time that is true to oneself.

Seiseki-Sakuragaoka House Takayoshi Nakamura Architects & Associates

A garage house for two generations of an extended family, set on a hilltop in Seiseki-Sakuragaoka, Tama City, and designed to make the most of its expansive views. The second-floor living room features a courtyard-style deck, combining privacy with a sense of openness while incorporating the large cherry tree directly in front of the house as part of the borrowed scenery. In addition to a shared family library, the house provides each spouse with a workspace and hobby room, accommodating their work in publishing. Provision has also been made for the future installation of a home elevator, creating a residence where family members of different generations can live together with a comfortable sense of distance.

House of Hikari — A Compactly Expanding Home for the Child‑Rearing Generation Tokuhiro Norimatsu Architect

A home designed for a family who has welcomed a six-month-old baby boy, a residence that grows with them. The through-doma—an earthen-floored passage linking the entrance and the parking space—continues on to the washbasin, bathroom, and laundry, supporting comfortable everyday living. Two gardens of distinct character, a south-facing garden and a tsubo-niwa (small courtyard garden), bring rich depth and variety to the house and gently admit light and breeze. Within a compact layout it offers a generous sense of openness, allowing residents to live with nature close at hand.