Plots of land long considered too small and strangely shaped to build upon prove to be more valuable when they seem thanks to some creative thinking. Across the world (put particularly in cramped Tokyo), architects are rising to the challenge to expand available living spaces in heavily populated cities, designing structures that fit these ‘odd lots’ without sacrificing privacy, comfort and outdoor spaces.

Wedge-Shaped Home by Oof! Architecture

The geometry of this triangular site in a residential neighborhood in Melbourne presented a major challenge for OOF! Architecture, especially due to strict building rules. The architects created a three-story structure full of split-level living areas to avoid wasting space on internal walls, doors and hallways.

House in Horinouchi by Mizuishi Architect

One of Tokyo’s most distinctive odd-shaped houses, ‘House in Horinouchi’ by Mizuishi Architect Atelier had to fit within a strip of land roughly the size of a parking spot while still having a place to store bikes outside. The ultra-narrow result features a tapered cantilevered end, a slightly wider area containing the living spaces, and a play loft for the owner’s children.

Grass Cave House by Makiko Tsukada

This plot is squished between several existing houses in the suburbs at an odd angle, which could easily have resulted in a dark structure with very little privacy and no outdoor spaces. Instead, Makiko Tsukada Architects built a step-shaped structure consisting of three grass-covered volumes, including a carport roof and the home itself. Large windows face these elevated lawns to bring sunlight inside.

Mountain House by Hiroki + Tomoko Sekiguchi

Monolithic and windowless from outside, ‘Mountain House’ by Hiroki and Tomoko Sekiguchi Architects has to accommodate a large four-wheel-drive car on its lowest level and contend with the prying eyes of neighbors. The result frames views of the sky and accesses daylight via skylights.

Triangular House by H.ARCHITECTS

Strict Japanese setback requirements prevent architects from building right up to the edge of the plot, including roof overhangs, yet the typical Japanese plot is incredibly small. This one was considered too awkward to build on and used as a parking lot for many years, but H.ARCHITECTS found a solution that makes the most of the adjacent park. A z-shaped interior layout allows for the creation of a few outdoor spaces, like the third floor balcony.

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Against All Odd Shapes 12 Homes Tailored To Tiny Difficult Plots

At just six feet wide, this incredibly narrow residence inserted into an alley in dense urban Tokyo is the latest example of Japanese architects thinking way outside the box when it comes to building new housing. The city is so developed, there’s almost no land left to build anything new, so they tend to get incredibly creative with even the oddest-shaped plots.

The four-story house by YUUA Architects and Associates extends about 36 feet into a former alley between two older buildings, and while the street-facing facade features floor-to-ceiling windows to maximize daylight and views, intimate spaces like bedrooms, bathrooms and main living areas are tucked into the back for privacy.

The minimalist interior design scheme includes floating platforms at various levels for a sense of openness, some of them made of metal mesh to let as much light pass through the house as possible. While such tiny residences are often kept bright white to create an illusion of extra space, YUUA makes an unusual choice with dark-painted walls.

There’s a semi-sunken basement for storage, and the first floor features a study area facing the street and a bedroom in the back. The third floor is comprised of an open-plan kitchen, living room and dining area, while the uppermost floor contains a bathroom, bedroom and terrace. Considering it’s only about as wide as an average adult male is tall, the house looks surprisingly livable.

Extremely narrow lots and busy urban locations are no big deal for ingenious Japanese architects creating comfortable, daylight-filled residential interiors with a few crucial design tricks, like the use of staggered open platforms instead of closed-off rooms. Interior courtyards, faux facades concealing secret gardens, strategically placed windows and totally transparent walls make the most of limited space.

Transparent House NA by Sou Fujimoto

Few Japanese houses are quite as eccentric as this one – a multi-story, glassed-in home with no stairs, no closed-off rooms and no privacy. House NA by Sou Fujimoto is built on a thin, split-level steel frame full of small platforms that don’t have a preset function, so they can be used however the inhabitants like. The house is almost more like an experimental installation than a real residence, given all that glass – you’d have to be quite an exhibitionist to live there. The further you walk into the home, however, the more complex and opaque all of those built-ins become, obscuring the vision of neighbors and passersby at least a little bit.

Translucent Rooftop Shed Skylights by Tato Architects

The need to extend the availability of daylight in an area of Japan that stays dark for much of the winter led to this novel solution by Tato Architects: placing transparent sheds on the roof of a partially subterranean home to act as giant skylights. From outside, the sheds look like greenhouses, while inside, they are bright, light-filled spaces for working, playing and lounging.

Treehouse Residence by Ryo Yamada

Envisioned as a treehouse in an urban context, this home by Ryo Yamada doesn’t actually look anything like a treehouse from the outside. The interiors, however, bear that tacked-together, DIY feel, especially given the wooden walkways that connect one open upper-level platform to the next. Located in Sapporo City, the house is essentially a large shell filled with individual ‘treehouses’ that can be moved around within the space, added to or removed altogether.

Courtyard Home with Street-Like Hallways by Suppose Design Office

This unusual house by Suppose Design Office is set up like a neighborhood block rather than an enclosed residence, with individual disconnected rooms under a large glass roof. The resulting spaces between the rooms function more like streets than hallways, with each room feeling like its own little house.

House H by Hiroyuki Shinozaki Architects

A stark white house on the outskirts of Tokyo conceals a complex, completely open interior in this project by Hiroyuki Shinozaki Architects. Eschewing interior walls, the design uses Y-shaped supports stretching from the pine floors to the ceilings and a series of staggered platforms to create individual spaces.

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Smart Space Solutions 14 Innovative Japanese Home Interiors

These narrow, movable, single-person residences provide affordable housing for young people shut out of more conventional options by the housing crisis in Europe’s major cities, while also finding uses for a proliferation of vacant lots. The Heijmans ONE project by Netherlands firm Moodworks Architecture can be placed temporarily in virtually any location and takes just one day to set up on the site.

Designed for a single occupant, the house measures 484 square feet and features an energy-efficient solid wood skeleton as well as solar panels to produce its own energy. It features everything you’d expect in a similarly sized apartment, including a kitchen, bathroom, living room, bedroom and patio, and can be transported via truck to its destination, whether urban or rural.

The target occupants are young professionals who want to buy their own home but are unable to afford quality housing as prices skyrocket well beyond the average person’s means. The project also addresses the issue of derelict sites in cities, taking advantage of all manner of vacant spaces, from construction sites that have been put on hold to lots that are currently up for sale.

The prefabricated houses are available for just 700 Euros per month, and two pilot homes have been placed on Zeeburgereiland in Amsterdam. Contact Heijmans to see them in person by appointment.

The lot purchased by a homeowner might be seemingly impossible – clinging to a sheer cliff, squeezing into tight spaces, or consisting of an odd geometric shape – but by god, architects will find a solution. Whether by building up from a postage-stamp-sized property, zig-zagging a house between its neighbors or designing a home in the shape of a giant X, architecture firms have found ways to use seemingly undesirable spaces, leading to some very unusual and imaginative residences.

Twisting Zig-Zag House

To most people, it wouldn’t seem like there was actually room for a new house in this extremely narrow, oddly-shaped space between several other residences. But in Japan, every square inch counts. Alphaville architects came up with a novel approach: a zig-zagging house that might skim its neighbors by mere inches in some spots, but still manages to feel private inside thanks to very careful placement of windows and courtyards.

X-Shaped Cliffside House

How do you build a house on a sheer cliff that has views on every side, but still feels private, and is virtually invisible from the street? Cadaval & Solá-Morales architects created a two-story, X-shaped residence that clings to the cliff, with the roof functioning as a driveway and terrace. Each side of the home’s edge gets its own sweeping view of Barcelona without facing any of the neighbors. Incisions at the top and bottom of the ‘X’ let in light while maintaining that privacy.

Super-Skinny Cliff-Hugging House

The slightest wedge of a lot on a rocky cliff gave way to this narrow, sloping house by Shuhei Endo. The triangular lot was confined by a Y-shaped intersection and several other residences, and gets as narrow as 5 feet at some points. Tucking the home beside the retaining wall anchors it, and a narrow space between the wall and the home provides a light-filled, private outdoor space with architectural interest.

Oceanfront Cabin on Stilts

The strip of land this oceanfront cabin is built upon is hardly larger than a parking spot. But owner of that land wanted Yasutaka Yoshimura Architects to create a relaxing weekend getaway overlooking Sagami Bay, with views of Mount Fuji in the distance. The result is ‘Window House,’ a slim residence built on steel poles to protect it from storm surges and enable those stunning views. The interior features staggered lofts accessible by stairs and ladders.

Spite House Built on Pie-Shaped Lot

The Seattle Spite House was built on a pie-shaped piece of land adjacent to a larger home, and gets so narrow at one end that it’s hard to open the oven door all the way. The story goes that it was built in 1925 out of spite because the tiny, odd-shaped lot was all that was given to a wife in a contentious divorce, and she was determined to make the most of it. The home sold for nearly $400K in 2013.

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No Lot Too Challenging 13 Ingenious Odd Shaped Houses