The Japanese Dream House: How Technology and Tradition Are Shaping New Home Design

The modern Japanese home has always attracted Western architects and designers. With a panache that often borders on the outrageous, modern homes in Japan blend such traditional elements as shoji screens and tatam-matted rooms with what, at first glance, appear to be thoroughly contemporary elements of the Western home.

And yet a closer look reveals impressively subtle alterations. Carefully crafted wooden surfaces throughout the home gleam with a delicate Japanese sense of color and rhythm. The kitchen and living areas are fitted out with modern appliances or furniture, yet the subtle variations in the wall placement and space usage suggest that a different sensibility is at work.

Azby Brown, in his third book on Japanese architecture, delves into the intricacies of the modern Japanese home by first reaching back to its roots (some thousand years earlier) to follow its development to the present day, then steams ahead to explore the state-of-the-art Japanese home, with its recycled materials, extruded synthetic wood decks, and dozens of unique touches that can only be found in Japan. Designer Joseph Cali has supplied countless intriguing modern and historical images, many of them appearing here in an English-language publication for the first time.

In page after page of this lushly illustrated, all-color volume, Brown presents his take on Japan's high-tech yet serene home designs. The Japanese Dream House is one of the first English language books to appear in a long time on the subject and is sure to prove an indispensable volume for architects, designers, and homeowners for years to come.

FEATURES

Full color

223 color photos Includes rare historical photos

10 line drawings

New architectural photos never published before