Designed for a family of four, Borderless House is located in the metropolitan area of Tokyo, on a three-meter wide plot. The aim was to create a home that is integrated into the urban context, while providing residents with settings for a range of activities, depending on their needs. Instead of creating harsh divisions between the living spaces, the difference in level is designed so that the spaces gradually merge. The dining and kitchen area on the ground floor, on the street level is made to integrate a house into the surrounding environment and as a result, there is a vertical gradation of space functions: it changes from a public space to an intimate space as it gets higher. The advantages of the corner of the block allowed coating windows for each space and providing plenty of natural light.

The key challenges were the narrowness of the plot and meeting the high standards for fire protection regulations in densely populated, urban area.

The main structure is rnade of recyclable, locally sourced, Japanese cedar wood panels. The panels are composed of vertical log lumbers, horizontally connected with metal bolts, without glue. This construction method was the most suitable for designing an open space, without structural elements inside of the house. Since the panels meet high standards for lire protection regulations, that provided a possibility to reveal the structure, without additional layers or coatings. Another important characteristic of this material is circular economy: the house can be disassembled and reused at another location. Comparing to conventional wooden house structures, this building method uses two times more lumber and therefore it stands out as a good example for storing carbon dioxide.