A Japanese house in Australia

This residence designed by Japanese architect Yo Shimada is located in Brisbane, the capital city of Queensland, Australia. This region is home to the Queenslander — a traditional style of wooden stilted house complete with veranda. The characteristic veranda is an environmental interface for keeping sunlight off the buildings outer walls, and also serves to link residents to their city and community through acting as an entrance porch, and sometimes even a dining room or reception area for greeting guests.

Inspired by the plentiful intelligence of the Queenslander, Yo Shimada redefined this intellect as one necessary for a lifestyle, which is conducted equally between indoors and in semi-outdoor spaces, and set about deliberately misinterpreting its contents and style. Japanese architect made sure that each indoor space had an adjoining outdoor area with an overhead roof, and installed a dining room and kitchen in both the interior and outside. To accomplish this, he combined a house-shaped volume, or more accurately, volume with a slender hipped roof inspired by the Queenslander, at 45. This created a geometric shape in the intersecting areas of the ceiling, which remind one of pointed cross vaults.