House in Sanno, a tiny house for a tiny urban lot | Studio NOA

This very small house is located on a tiny lot in Sanno, a neighborhood of Tokyo. The clients, a couple with no children, asked architect Nobuhito Mori of Studio NOA to design a house for their small lot that would accommodate them and a future child. This 38 m² (409 ft²) dwelling was his response.

The entry to the house is through a very tight vestibule which then opens to a main room that soars 6 m (20 ft) to the roof. This main room is a combination living room, stair hall and library, with one wall devoted to an impressively tall bookcase.

All the other major rooms are stacked in the back half of the house. The bedroom is half a flight down from the main room, a compact kitchen and dining room are half a flight up, and the top level has a bathing area with a jetted tub positioned under a large skylight. These rooms are not big but they gain a sense of spaciousness from being open to the voluminous main room. The upper level also has a small rooftop deck, the only available outside space aside from a small parking spot just off the street.

There is no toilet in the top-level bathing room. Instead there are two tiny powder rooms, one just off the main room and one on the kitchen/dining level. Having two powder rooms located so close together may seem like a waste of space in such a small house, but it does allow guests to use whichever one offers the greatest privacy at the time.

There is a small loft over the entrance which supposedly would serve as a child’s bedroom if the family grew. It seems a bit on the small side and the only access is by ladder, but potentially it could be expanded with access provided from the semi-circular stair landing.

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Images courtesy of Studio NOA. Via Archello.

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