The site is located in a residential area, slightly off the main road.　A young couple purchased this property after having previewed of several other properties based on the premise that they would renovate the purchased house. Although there were several traces of previous obscure renovations, we could decipher that the building was about 50 years old from the year of manufacture of the moldboard glass.

The first floor consisted of two adjoining washitsus(Japanese-styled tatami room) and another porched washitsu. The second floor consisted of two washitsus divided by a sunroom across a corridor.

We were asked to design the basic plan of the building even before the property had been purchased. This was challenging as we could not get too detailed with our designs as we did not have permission to check the condition of the internal frame of the building. The plan therefore was to leave the exterior untouched, “ripping out” all the internal finishes except the mud walls and “drilling holes” to connect the first and second floors.

In the end, due to financial hurdles, the plan diverged from the initial proposal, but the initial vague ideas of "ripping out" and "drilling holes" were carried over to the end. The exposed walls of the sunroom and stairwell, which surfaced during demolition, served well to support these initial design concepts as well.

The sunroom on the second floor and the two washhitsus each were “drilled” with a one-tatami sized(910mmX1820mm) atrium, creating a connection between the upper and lower floors; the second floor was planned to be converted into the children's room in the future, but until then will be used as a salon for the couple's love of art and music.

The walls, except for the mud walls, were finished with plasterboard and holes covered with just putty and in some cases industrial aluminum foil insulation. The plasterboard was just putty treated then left untouched to exaggerate the underlying handwork of the craftsmen and give the house a more rustic and handcrafted look. As for the aluminum foil insulation, we adopted it as a finish because we felt that it is also one of those materials that gets hidden behind walls which hides the handy work done by the craftsmen.

We also attempted to reuse any waste materials generated during the renovation. Ranma (transom windows) and pillar materials were converted into tables, and yukimi shoji screens were converted into storage doors. The dismantling and reuse of the existing structure and materials, and the customization of new materials, resembles the process of tailoring clothes, which is why the house was named "Tailored House”.