PLUS House Architecture in Japan

PLUS House Architecture in Japan

The PLUS House is a super minimal modern weekend home designed by Japanese architects Mount Fuji Architects Studio. If this is a weekend home, where do these people live during the week?

The house has two main blocks at 90-degree angles, the PLUS House appears from above to form an almost complete cross or a plus-sign. The opulent weekend villa juts out of a mountainside in a popular holiday area known for its hot springs, in Shizuoka Prefecture on Japan’s main island of Honshu.

Overlooking the Pacific Ocean, the deceptively simple two-level concrete structure has private rooms and a bath on the lower level, and salon and kitchen on the upper. The water for the bedrooms and bath comes directly from a natural hot spring. The exterior is clad entirely in white water-polished marble with surface texture changing gradually toward the outer tips of the blocks from rough to mirror-smooth. The interior is also covered in white marble that reflects the blue light from the south (ocean) and green light from the west (forest).

This minimal modern house would make Mies van der Rohe smile!

Photographs by Ken’ichi Suzuki

Mount Fuji Architects Studio