An old train carriage forms one half of this family home in Takasago, Japan, while the other half looks like it could be a railway station (+ slideshow).

Founder of Kobe-based studio Container Design Takanobu Kishimoto created the single-storey house – named Platform – for a suburban site in Takasago, a coastal city in Hyogo Prefecture.

Kishimoto planned to remove the old train carriage from the boundary of the plot to create a larger building area, but on learning that the passenger car had been on the site since the client's childhood and was a popular local landmark, he decided to incorporate it into the design.

The architect added a long volume with a shed roof adjacent to the carriage, giving it the appearance of a train at a station platform. "It looks like it's going to start moving at any moment," he said.

The timber-framed building contains a living space and bedroom, and is clad in sheets of metal to provide an industrial appearance, while the train houses a children's play area and music room.

A slender gap between the carriage and the wall of the house is used as a storage area for logs, which fuel a wood-burning stove in the main living space.

The roof plane extends over the edge of the building to partially protect this area from rain, while a lip overhanging the front of the house creates a porch.

Inside, the pale wooden framework is left unfinished and the walls are lined with sheets of matching timber. Metallic pipes are exposed across the ceiling and a strip of concrete marks out a corridor, giving the space a raw appearance.

An open-plan living room occupies the front of the block, while the bedroom and a combined bathroom and utility area sit at the back of the site.

A decked patio cut into one side of the building provides separation between the social and the more private areas of the property, but its glazed doors let natural light into both parts of the building.

A short corridor bridges the gap between the house and the train, linking the living room and kitchen with the music room and children's play area in the car, which has also been lined with pale wood. Corresponding windows create a visual connection between the two areas.