Japanese studio Takeru Shoji Architects has completed Hara House, a village home designed to look like a tent.
Hara House is located in an agricultural village belonging to a single family in Nagaoka, Niigata Prefecture.

As a result, the clients asked Takeru Shoji Architects to design them a home that would communicate with the other buildings around it, including the main family house.
By creating a building with a tent shape, the studio was able to create generous openings where neighbours feel welcome to stop and chat.

"Instead of designing a conventional fully self reliant building, we aspired to create a buoyant and bustling hub," explained Takeru Shoji Architects.
"We designed a space where passing neighbours, friends and children can easily stop by to chit-chat under the entrance porch, or workshop meetings and events hosted in the space can spill out to the land."
The house contains two storeys. Its sloping roof extends all the way down the ground, giving the building a triangular shape, and there are large triangular openings on both the east and west sides.

This was achieved with a simple timber frame structure, made up of 120-millimetre-wide beams. These are assembled into a series of A-frame trusses.

"The building emulates its surrounding, which has many vinyl houses and work sheds," said the design team.
"This structure creates an image of a large tent; a stiff yet giving structure which assimilates all the human behaviou...