Solar panel facade cloaks off-grid home in Japan by Florian Busch Architects

A "solar skin" of photovoltaic panels covers this barn-like home in Hokkaido, Japan, which has been completed by Tokyo-based Florian Busch Architects.

Called House W, the home was designed for a family who chose to leave Tokyo in order to live completely off-grid in an agricultural area near the Furano Plateau.

Drawing on the appearance of typical agricultural barns, Florian Busch Architects  created a gabled form that was then "snapped" in half, angling its two ends to capture specific views and creating a central glazed strip providing light and warmth.

"The house's design starts with a compact volume, deliberately informed by the simplicity of a farmer's barn," the studio told Dezeen.

"However, the concept moves away from a single, compact mass and instead breaks the building into separate volumes, rotated to face the east and northwest."

"Rather than the conventional way of placing solar panels on top of a roof as a retrospective add-on, the detailing the building's exterior cladding, its 'solar skin', is a key driver of the design," it added.

The home was organised around the fully-glazed area at its centre, which contains both the main staircase and spaces where the other rooms can spill through translucent, sliding walls.

Across its two storeys, the eastern half of the home contains bedrooms below and a living and dining area above, while to the west is a study and utility space on the ground floor and a guest bedroom above.

A grid of thin timber battens forms a screen over the glazing that covers the wall and roof of the central area, which incorporates openable windows to control ventilation.

"The interstitial space reveals the compact volume's interior as a fragile soft interior world in stark contrast to the homogeneous hard exterior," described the studio.

"As if a snapped twig's vascular tissue had not been completely severed, the wooden interior continues to flow between the two halves of the house," it added.

At the two gable ends of House W, large windows were positioned to look out towards the surrounding mountains. These ends were clad in pale timber planks that contrast the black cladding and solar panels of the home's exterior.

Inside, minimal living spaces feature white walls framing areas of the structure's exposed timber frame, which are contrasted by colourful bathrooms in shades of blue, pink and pale green.

The photovoltaic facade of House W is capable of producing nearly twice the energy used by the home in a year, while heating and hot water is provided via a heat pump.

Tokyo based studio Florian Busch Architects was founded in 2009 by Florian Busch. Previous projects by the studio include another home in Hokkaido perched on stilts in a forest, with spaces that branch out between the surrounding trees.

Elsewhere in Japan, a pyramidal concrete home was built onto a sloping site in Okinawa and a house comprising six wooden cottages was topped with a swooping roof in Karuizawa.

The photography is courtesy of Florian Busch Architects.

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