House in Takatsuki
Takatsuki, Japan
A timber house of 90 square metres in Takatsuki, between Osaka and Kyoto, finished in 2013 for a couple with three children. The living floor is partly laid with tatami, and the stair to the upper storey climbs straight past a bookshelf covering the whole double height wall, so books can be pulled off the shelves on the way up. The shelves too high to reach hold photographs instead.
There is no entrance hall: sliding glass doors open straight onto an earth floored area joined to the kitchen, where a table made from a single timber slab, with a cooktop built into it, sits under a black steel range hood at the centre of the house. Upstairs, a long desk faces the void, each of the three children has a loft, and a small window in the parents' study looks back down into the house. The architects photographed the house themselves.
FujiwaraMuro Architects
The Osaka practice of Shintaro Fujiwara and Yoshio Muro, who founded it together in 2002 and have built more than 200 projects, most of them houses. Both were born in 1974, studied at Kindai University, and now lecture there part-time.
Fujiwara Muro Architects (@fujiwaramuroarchitects).
The picture comes from this post on Instagram.
Researched August 2026. I credit each piece as carefully as I can; if you know more about this one, message me on Instagram.