Muji unveils prefab huts designed by Morrison, Grcic and Fukasawa

Product designers Jasper Morrison, Konstantin Grcic and Naoto Fukasawa have each turned their hand to creating prefab huts for Japanese home store Muji.

The three tiny houses – available to buy in Japan next year, according to Quartz – were revealed over the past weekend during Tokyo Design Week in the city’s Midtown Garden.

Morrison has come up with a ‘Muji Hut’ made from cork, designed with short countryside breaks in mind. The house sits atop a timber platform and has provisions for cooking, eating, washing, studying and sleeping.

‘Whenever I think about going to the country for the weekend, I start imagining a small house with everything needed for a short stay,’ says Morrison.

‘The dream usually collapses when I think of the complexity of building a new house, but with this project I realised there was a chance to design such a house as a product rather than a one-off.’

Grcic has adapted an aluminium lorry container for his structure while Fukasawa has devised a timber hut. The whole front facade of the latter’s design is covered in sliding glass doors, allowing natural light to flood the space.

‘Huts have a charm – not quite a holiday home, not quite like going camping. With a small hut, you can surround yourself in nature whenever you like,’ says Fukasawa. ‘Minimalist living with minimal things – it’s a proposition typical of Muji.’

The huts are the latest series of prefabs by the brand, which has also offered larger-scale homes, including the ‘Furniture House’ by architect Shigeru Ban.