In Japan, a small house ("Ichido-ken"一戸建て in Japanese) is a separate building for living, either as a house for living by oneself or as a villa for vacation. In Japan, this form of living is very common, and designing small houses is the path of growth for almost all Japanese architects. Tadao Ando, Toyo Ito, and Kazuyo Sejima were all successful in designing small houses before they established their status in the Japanese architectural world. Small houses have a very special meaning in the minds of Japanese architects.

As Kengo Kuma bluntly states in the preface to this book, the 21st century is the century of the house. After a long period of development, and especially after the hustle and bustle of the industrial age, architecture has returned to the house. Of course, it is not simply a return to housing as a form of architecture, but to the most basic needs of architecture in the first place.

Because of this, I am eager to introduce the small houses of Japan to my fellow architects around the world. I would like to express my gratitude to the 12 architects in this book for their support in the preparation of this book. I would also like to thank Mr. Kengo Kuma for writing the foreword to this book during his busy schedule. I would also like to thank our editorial and entrepreneurial team, whose hard work has made this book possible.