Based in Hiroshima, Japan, SDOa small architecural and design practice formed by Makato Tanijiri in 2000, has produced some of the most intriguing and wonderful houses that I have seen for a long time.

Whilst not always the most traditionally “beautiful” of things from the outside, the internal spaces are more often than not something really special, demonstrating an enviable ability to manipulate seemingly tiny and unprepossesing plots of land into spacially impressive and practical (at least in Japanese terms) places to live.

Take this image of a house recently completed on a challangeing site next to the railway lines in Miyoshi, a town near Hiroshima

From the outside it appears to be grey box with no windows, oddly angled walls sitting on a plot of concrete. Not a great start you might think, but then look what happens on the inside. Top lit light wells invisible from the…