Japanese studio Tato Architects has built a house in the town of Sonobe, Japan, with a sunroom that can be opened up to the garden by sliding open a huge corrugated polycarbonate wall.
The Kobe-based studio headed by architect Yo Shimada designed the building for a plot within a recently developed residential area in the mountainous Funai district.
Shimada, who designed a property in Osaka featuring layered platforms without any internal walls that picked up the Dezeen Award for House of the Year 2018, took inspiration for House in Sonobe from ad-hoc additions to local homes.

The region's cool and wet climate encourages homeowners to erect lean-to extensions clad with corrugated polycarbonate panels that provide them with warm and dry sunrooms. "These so-called 'terrace enclosures' are often used as storehouses in winter, or as places for drying laundry ? a clever feature, that we realised represents a certain style shared among the various new mass-produced houses of this residential district," Shimada pointed out.

The architect added that these extensions informed the materials and functionality of the sunroom his studio included in its plan for the house, which also features a variety of other open-air spaces.
"We incorporated a terrace with wide eaves and other semi-outdoor spaces into the interior of the house," said Shimada. "Our expectation was that these would act as interfaces between the surrounding environments."
Photo is by Yoh...