Morimado: A Split-Level Timber House in Hokkaido

Yosuke Tomiya's Morimado house in Hokkaido spreads its interior across stepped levels rather than a single floor plane. Rooms are separated by changes in height instead of doors, and because the house sits inside forest, each level meets the trees at a different point — trunks from below, canopy from above. The split-level is a familiar device in Japanese housing, usually deployed to divide small plots without walls; here it works as framing rather than partition.

The climate complicates it. Hokkaido winters are long and heavy with snow, and level changes encourage warm air to gather at the upper steps, so the timber structure and insulation detailing cannot be considered apart from the spatial idea. A stepped plan that is not resolved thermally sends its bill to the occupant. Done well, though, it turns the window from an opening into a viewpoint, which is what the name — forest and window — suggests.