MUJI houses aspire to disrupt the way commercial homes are typically designed and marketed in order to disrupt the status quo. Homes have an emphasis on being designed as strategically small, contain one tool with no interior walls, focus on fundamental functionalities and are designed as an ‘empty’ box. The concept of the ‘one-room house’ comes from architect Kazuhiko Namba who conceived this in 1995 as a way to fit a highly functional small box into any urban function. “Namba also imagined that the functionalities embedded in a house could evolve and learn to adapt to the surroundings, as if the house was a living organism.” (Interaction Green). The empty box ideology for homes allows for the elimination of load bearing interior walls and allows homeowners to change the layout anything that they want. The box houses allows the homeowners to create a house that works for them while focusing on traditional Japanese design.

One of the most interesting parts of MUJI houses and Japanese deign is that the load has traditionally been born by exposed pillars and beans instead of walls within the home. Houses in Japan typically use portable sliding panels (fusuma) or screen doors (shoji) attached within the unlovable walls. This allows the home to be more connected to the outside world allowing nature to come in. Safety and Engineering protocols have been put in place to use a combination of wooden slabs and joints/ fasteners to structure the wood creating a welcoming ambience from the exposed pillars and beams.