Modernists around the world gleaned many of their trademark principles from traditional Japanese architecture: the low horizontal profile, the flexible interior spaces. But perhaps the greatest contribution to modernist thinking in the West was the fluid integration of the built environment with nature. Japan's wood-framed paper screens sliding open to carefully tended gardens flanked by sheltered wooden walkways became, in the United States and Europe, expanses of sliding or pivoting glass and broad, protective overhangs enabling the unchecked flow of life from the open plan interior to the outdoor patio.

Communing with the natural world is still important in Japan — where else is cherry blossom gazing a national pastime? But in an increasingly urban society, contact with nature occurs only during vacations or at weekend homes in places like Karuizawa. About 100 miles northwest of Tokyo and 3,000 feet above sea level at the foot of Mt. Asama, the area has cool summer air, forests of larch and white birch and natural features like waterfalls and hot springs. These so charmed a Canadian missionary, Alexander Croft Shaw, in the late 1800s, that he established a resort there for fellow missionaries and intellectuals to escape the summer heat of Tokyo. Later, the area began to attract well-to-do Japanese vacationers. Today, much of the forest is protected and, thanks to high-speed trains that have lessened the trip to about an hour, well-heeled Tokyo residents maintain second homes in Karuizawa for year-round weekend getaways.

When Kotaro Ide, principal of Artechnic Architects, was commissioned to design a weekend home in Karuizawa for a Tokyo family, he was asked to incorporate the beauty of the landscape into the house.