Japanese Home on Narrow Lot Embraces Greenery with an Indoor Dry Garden

Designing a modern family home on a small and narrow lot is hard enough, but adding an eco-friendly tinge to it makes the job trickier. Sitting at the foot of a mountain, the Melt House in Japan manages to accomplish just that with an interior that welcomes greenery indoors. While most homes do this by using floor-to-ceiling glass doors and walls, this home designed by SAI Architectural Design Office goes a step further by actually creating a beautiful indoor garden. Covered with a double-height roof, the garden sits in the middle of the house and separates the kitchen and dining from the living space. It acts as a transition zone and also brings everyone in the family together each day!

Street facade in white with curved walls and a wooden entrance door of home in Japan

You do not really feel that the space inside the house is limited and the height of the ceiling plays a very big role in accomplishing this. Apart from this obvious feature, you can also see the brilliant use of windows that usher in just the right amount of natural light even as a wood and white color scheme takes over everywhere. The family residence designed for a couple in their 30’s and their two children has the living areas on the ground level and the bedrooms along with the bathrooms sit on the upper floor.

Modern dry garden blurs traditional indoor-outdoor lines with ease

Placing the green area indoors gives the home a much greener, natural vibe

Stylish dry garden inside the house viewed from above

Upper level play room of the Melt House with ample natural light

View of the entrance and the parking at the Melt House in Japan

View of the landscape around the narrow Japanese home

White, wood and glass create a cool interior inside the Japanese home

The dry indoor garden adds a tactile element to the green brilliance of this house and does so without placing unreasonable demands on the homeowners in terms of costs or maintenance. Minimal and cozy at the same time, this is a home that is picture-perfect in more ways than one. [Photography: Norihito Yamauchi]