Architects Yoichiro Hayashi and Shogo Sakurai (NAAD) upgraded a rundown 100-year-old Kyoto home by covering it in plywood to create a “temporary space for living”.

For a client that only planned to live temporarily in a home that would have been expensive to restore to its original state, the architects covered the walls in a material often used for short-lived purposes (set-design, exhibitions) to give the home a feeling of being “under construction”. They named the space “Ephemeral House” in appreciation of the Japanese aesthetic that sees value in impermanence.

The 60-square-meter space itself is continuously being transformed by the sliding doors that move to create and dismantle rooms (the doors can be removed completely to create one large open space).