One-Room Home by Sou Fujimoto Architects

When we think of a family of four living in one room we think of turn-of-the-century tenements on New York's Lower East Side, not a fab, modern Japanese home. Okay, 'one-room' is a bit of a misnomer here, but we're still intrigued by the unique layout of doorless rooms with entries of varying widths radiating out from a center like bent petals of a flower.

The home was built in 2005 in a Japanese suburb by Sou Fujimoto Architects. We think the layout and lack of doors is inviting, but is it practical? Especially with children? (More importantly, is there really not a door on the bathroom?)

Having spent the past three years living in a long railroad-style apartment with a young child we can say with certainty that we miss having doors. We'd love to close a door to the room our son sleeps in so we wouldn't have to tiptoe around as much. We'd love to close the door to a messy room when guests are over. And some days we'd just love to close a door, any door, with ourselves inside to get a few minutes of privacy.

What about you - do you like this design? Do you live in a loft or other doorless space?

(Via Trendir; photos by Daici Ano & Sou Fujimoto)

Comments (9)

I would say that having children increases the need for doors. A couple could get along fine in a space with no doors if they respected each other's privacy, but with children, you need to be able to contain them at first, when they're small, and then they need to get away from you, when they're larger. So no doors= no go, in my book.

Open floor plan here, and we use only (1) doors on bathrooms for obvious reasons (2) the front door and (2) the door to the garage below. We don't use our bedroom doors, and we pretty much removed closet doors. We do not have a home built like a flower; it's a boring rectangle on a rectangular lot.

Love the idea, just not with kids.

So basically it's a loft?

No doors--no way! In a small house, people need to be able to get away from each other sometimes, including from each others' noise...One of the best decisions we made was to put a door on the hall to the bedrooms, which also had doors. It allowed kids and parents to have different sleep schedules, private conversations, etc. We left the doors open most of the time, but the option of having privacy was priceless.

"When we think of a family of four living in one room we think of turn-of-the-century tenements on New York's Lower East Side"

What?

two things:
"When we think of a family of four living in one room we think of turn-of-the-century tenements on New York's Lower East Side"
What?
Also if you look at the second floor plan there is a door on every bedroom and bathroom

I'm pretty sure there would be little possibility of more children in the future if I lived there. Give me doors, please!

Although the architect's website didn't mention whether the house has doors or not, other websites' information on the house indicates that it actually does. It seems that the rooms including master bedroom, children's bedrooms, bathroom, and even a Japanese room all have "SLIDING" doors. The house is called T House, and you can see a paper model of the house made by the blog owner who saw this house in a Japanese architecture book (the blogger is not an architect).
http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/sakamiti_to_sora/3627804.html
The blog is in Japanese but you can click the photo to enlarge.