Shimmering white duplex

Tokyo-based architect Masaki Endoh teamed up with Masahiro Ikeda to design a double apartment on a site at the edge of Shibuya, Tokyo. As the "Natural Ellipse" building is surrounded by "love hotels", its design is vaguely phallic in shape.

Clad in fiber-reinforced plastic, the duplex seems almost impermeable. As views were bad, inhabitants only get glimpses of the exterior through the few openings cut into the building skin. But a secret terrace, open to the sky, is contained within (and concealed by) the convex walls of the deeply indented apex. Floored with glass, the terrace is also a skylight shedding luminance into the building and down the stairwell.

Via Architectural Record and Architectural Review.