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The world’s largest city, Tokyo, is divided into 23 individual wards. One of the most populous of all wards, Setagaya is itself subdivided into five districts. Putting a new home in the crowded ward is akin to using a shoehorn to slide a grey whale into a thimble.

But that hasn’t stopped innovative architect Yasuhiro Yamashita from trying. Yamashita claims that 60 percent of nature is destroyed by architecture.  Consequently, he spends almost all of his time on commuter trains in designing small homes with even smaller footprints.

Good Fortune

Yamashita created his “Lucky Drops” home to fit the skinniest parcel in Setagaya—a forty-foot wedge in an afterthought of land in 2005. The idea is that, shaped like a cathedral with light streaming in from above, the house is illuminated like a paper lantern.

Going Cellular

National Public Radio has reported on the “Cell Brick” micro house that Yamashita built in Tokyo in 2004. The three-story house is designed of “cross stitch” glass and steel.

Crystal Clear

Yamashita used a steel frame to hold air-filled glass blocks in place to create this unique home in Tokyo called Crystal Brick. These kyosho jutaku (ultra-small homes) are rather unique, even in jam-packed Tokyo. Says Yamashita, “People tend to think of homes simply in terms of floor space. We architects think in 3-D.”

You can’t judge a small house from the outside. This interior of Crystal Brick illustrates Yamashita’s point: “I think that the Japanese architecture system is very veiled. This means that the outside of a building does not necessarily reveal how the inside is organized.”

I was enamored with Yamashita even more to learn that his small homes are also low-cost dwellings.  America could learn a few things from this sensei.

New, sustainable homes don’t always have to look like flying saucers. But the ones that resemble off-world housing tend to catch my eye. Just a few years ago, you could only find a few examples of green homes where you’d consider spending the night. Sustainability is hot today, even if the homes are more expensive to buy than traditional homes with carbon footprints the size of a Yeti.

I can easily imagine making one of these dwellings my long-term home. And each has a truly unique feel while slowing humankind’s rush to strip-mine what’s left of our resources.

Happiness Cubed

The Fincube house is a low-energy entry from Germany’s Studio Aisslinger. Horizontal slats of locally grown larch and interiors of stone-pine make up this modular home with a minimal CO2-footprint.

Desert’s Main Course

Looking like discarded microwave ovens left in an Arizona campsite, these homes are made of low-maintenance, corten-steel siding over rammed earth that beats the heat by day and the cold when the coyotes come out in the moonlight. Rammed earth homes of adobe or cob fibers are as sustainable as it gets, last nearly forever, and cost half the amount of traditional timbered homes.

It’s Alive!

The Vail Grant House is a pre-fab concrete home made of 60 percent recycled materials, including auto parts and coal ash. Read more about it at the Daily Green.

Cubism Squared

The Rapson Greenbelt home is a passive-solar dwelling created by Wieler architects. There are starter models and increments up to a 2,660 square foot townhouse. Check them out at Wieler.

The Gem of the Ocean

The Columbia City development near Seattle harvests rainwater and provides homeowners with heat-recovery ventilation systems, green roofs, and radiant floor heat—a prized accoutrement for Northwest dwellers. (Did I mention you’ll always have warm tootsies in the morning?)