Solid Wood House｜Custom Home Examples by Architectural Offices10Picks Author: Qurasuki Editorial Department

Solid-wood homes allow experiencing wood closely, with material expressions shaping spatial impressions. Wood utilized in floors, walls, ceilings, and fixtures generates distinct atmospheres through colors, grain, and tactile textures. Beyond initial beauty, color and texture changes across time characterize solid wood. Indoor light and furniture combinations alter wood visibility, yielding varied expressions per space. Ranging from warm wood-filled residences to homes accentuating solid wood via contrasting materials, expression breadth is vast. Through real examples of custom homes by architectural firms, we introduce how solid wood incorporates into architecture like floors and walls to shape daily scenery.

Forest Living KICHI ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN

“Forest Living” is a single-story residence situated within a dense forest. The exterior is clad in traditional Japanese yakisugi (charred cedar), whose subdued black finish naturally melds with the surrounding woodland landscape. The building is organized on a single level, with a plan that provides forest views from every room. By experiencing the expanse of greenery through the windows, occupants are afforded a quiet, tranquil mode of living.

F mökki Yoshihiro Ito Architect & Associates

A small structure and a lifestyle with a sauna cabin in the garden.

Higashiura House Kota Goto Architectural Studio

A residence sited in a longstanding residential neighborhood on the Chita Peninsula. The design gives form to the owner's wish for a living arrangement with a sunken kotatsu while valuing connections to the local community. By raising part of the living-room floor to create a sunken-kotatsu and offsetting southern sightlines from interior views, the scheme achieves both openness and privacy. The extensive use of solid cedar enriches the space as it matures. The house is designed to integrate gently with the surrounding streetscape and to grow alongside the local landscape.

A Traditional House in Kyotango Tetsuya Kimura Architects

This traditional house in Kyotango, built in 1882, was renovated while preserving the customs of daily life and the existing layout. Historic elements—including the robust beams that once supported the sericulture rooms and the shoin shoji screens—have been retained, while variations in the low floors and ceilings create spaces suited to contemporary living. Broad stepped flooring gently bridges the difference in level from the existing Japanese-style rooms, while seismic dampers improve the structural performance. The residence carries forward the generous spatial continuity of the old traditional house into the lives of its occupants today and in the future.

Koshien House — Renovation Beginning with Solid-Wood Floor Restoration Tokuhiro Norimatsu Architect

This residence carefully excavates the latent charm of the building through the act of reconstruction. Private rooms were removed, and from a newly introduced raised platform the living room can be viewed through the window, creating a layout that produces a gentle connection not only within the interior but also mediated by the exterior. The columns that serve as the spatial anchors have been assigned new roles, and while inheriting the time and memories the building has accumulated, they quietly overlay contemporary living and performance. It is a home imbued with the deep allure unique to reconstruction.

Garage House of Slanted Light Yosuke Tomiya Architectural Design Co., Ltd.

This garage house is built on a sloping site in Sapporo. Rather than treating the site’s changes in level and applicable regulations as constraints, they were understood as conditions guiding the architecture, and the home was planned from a sectional perspective. A mixed structural system, with the basement level constructed in reinforced concrete and the first and second floors in timber, allows the garage, storage, and living spaces to be arranged rationally. The void and stairwell are connected continuously, bringing light from above down to the first floor. Large windows on the east side frame views of the sky and cityscape, while the textures of solid wood and Sakhalin fir add a warm, comfortable character.

House by Subtraction | A Condominium Renovation That Removes the Superfluous Yoshihiro Yamamoto Architects Associates

This is a condominium renovation for a young family. Although the existing unit was nominally a 3LDK (three bedrooms plus living/dining/kitchen), the LDK area was cramped. Working within a limited budget and constrained space, we removed the ceiling finishes and unnecessary partition walls to create a larger LDK, and fabricated a pared-down kitchen and movable shelving from plywood. The plan is configured to accommodate a hybrid seating arrangement—part chair-seated, part floor-seated—directly on solid wood flooring.

A Home for Taking It Easy on Solid Sugi Cedar Floors kurachiffon Miki Takiuchi First-Class Architect’s Office

This apartment renovation was designed around the realities of parenting and dual-income family life, with a focus on household efficiency and a carefully considered storage plan. Rather than prioritizing individual bedrooms for the future, it puts life in the “now” first, boldly converting one room into a combined laundry room and family walk-in closet. Built-in furniture and storage were meticulously designed to create an environment where the family can naturally keep things organized. Together with the openness of a garden apartment unit, the home reduces the burden of household chores and gives parent and child a comfortable place to spend time together.

Hyu House ARCHIXXX Satoru Shinno Architectural Design

This two-story wooden residence is located in Yuasa, Wakayama Prefecture. It was planned to envelop the adjacent one-story main house on a limited 16-tsubo site. Taking advantage of the area’s abundant sunlight, the white walls give the small site a distinctive presence. An open wall in front of the entrance draws the gentle breezes from the river in front of the house into the interior each morning and evening. By skillfully incorporating light and wind, the residence creates comfort and a sense of spaciousness on a compact site.

Urata House Echizen Design Laboratory

This renovation of a traditional Japanese house re-edits the accumulated memories and layers of time inscribed in the site for contemporary life, while respecting their significance. New places to gather were created through the introduction of a void and a built-in sofa, while old fittings, furniture, window latticework, and other elements were skillfully regenerated. Existing light fixtures and fittings were also retained, connecting the history of the home to the future. In the space woven from new and old materials, the past, present, and future gently overlap, giving expression to the richness of a home that grows together with the family.