In 1976, the architect Tadao Ando was commissioned to design a small house on a narrow plot between party walls in the Sumiyoshi neighborhood, in Osaka. The Azuma House was one of the first projects in the career of the Japanese architect. Ando decided to close the house to the outside, so he proposed a completely blind concrete enclosure that forces the house to overturn inside. Inside, the elongated house is divided into three equal parts, being the central part a patio open to the outside capable of illuminating the other two parts.