Renovated Japanese house features translucent facade

Some homes are clad in stately brick, others in sturdy concrete. This house in the Furano, a town in Hokkaido, Japan, swings in an entirely different direction with one of its facades made from translucent corrugated plastic.

Japanese firm Yoshichika Takagi + Associates has a thing for the material, which it has used in previous residential projects, such as this greenhouse-inspired abode. For its most recent house, the architects stripped the siding off of the original structure built in 1974 but kept its wonky shape intact. Three of the facades are finished in black sheet metal, while the last is wrapped in the translucent plastic.

Ikuya Sasaki

Ikuya Sasaki

The project is named the Deformed Roofs of Furano for its truly strange shape, featuring an asymmetrical roof and unusual angles. According to the firm, similar “deformed roof” houses are common in Hokkaido.

Inside, the main change the architects made was extruding one of the home’s facades six feet in order to create the airy, plastic-encased space. That area is as quirky as the cladding, with stairs leading to platforms that seem to float in midair.

Ikuya Sasaki

Ikuya Sasaki