If you’ve studied Japanese architecture or watched Japanese period dramas (jidai geki 時代劇), you’ve probably noticed how sliding doors in manors could be opened to reveal an atrium to allow the occupants to be close to nature. The “Hiroshima Hut” modernizes that concept by creating what is essentially a glass house, where the world outside is your garden:

[Image: a view of the Hiroshima Hut showing the door and another building viewed through the hut]

Suppose Design Office’s transparent house uses transparent acrylic for the walls. The blog for realestate.co.jp notes,

The wide eaves of the Hiroshima Hut are meant to encourage the residents to use the spaces inside and outside of the building in different ways according to the seasons and the hour of the day, blending their lifestyles into nature. The roof also has tapered edges. When viewed from a distance the roof appears to be paper thin.

Even better? The acrylic insulates the home, and in a country where insulating homes is not common, a major bonus.

Check out more about the home on realestate.co.jp and Arch Daily.