A cantilevered storey projects from the side of this house in Gifu, Japan, to create a sheltered alcove on the edge of the garden (+ slideshow).
Keitaro Muto Architects designed the family home for a 171 square metre plot in a residential neighbourhood of the city.
The cantilevered section is raised 1.4 metres above the ground, providing a sheltered space where the family's children can play and from which a hammock has been slung.
A staircase leads from a paved parking area into an entrance hall in the cantilevered space, which also houses the master bedroom.
The floating theme continues inside the house, where a staircase with horizontal wooden treads that seems to hover in mid air descends into the open-plan kitchen and living space.
A flight of perforated metal stairs leads from the entrance to the upper storey, which houses two bedrooms, a toilet and a walk-in closet.
The garden is visible through windows below the level of the cantilever, while a void extends the living space to the height of the second storey.
Keitaro Muto Architects previously designed a house in Japan with outward-sloping walls covered in gravel.
We recently published a house in Pittsburgh, USA, with a 16 metre cantilever over the roof of a glass factory, and a wooden house in Japan with a tree growing through a hole in its cantilevered top floor.
Other Japanese houses we've featured recently include one with a floating staircase incorporating built-in wooden furniture and another shaped like a fairytale tower with five different staircases connecting its two floors.
See more cantilevers »
See more Japanese houses »
Photography is by Apertozero.
