Foggy thinking

Faced with a design brief that called for 'an expanse of space' and an 'open floor plan' yet required all the necessities of a normal family home, Japanese architecture firm StudioGreenBlue came up with an ingenious solution. By subdividing the new-build home using layered perforated metal screens, through which figures and shapes are distorted but which still allow natural light into the space, they have succeded in creating privacy in an open plan layout.

The project, called Distance of Fog, was built in a cul-de-sac of seven traditional Japanese family homes in suburban Tokyo. The perforations in the metal sheets are in a variety of patterns, and the sheets have been overlapped so that the pattern changes depending on where the viewer is standing - a quality known as the 'fogging effect'.

Follow the link to designboom for images of the Distance of Fog project