At the opposite end of the house, the soaking tub gets almost daily use. The bath and shower fixtures are by Dornbracht

A soaking tub satisfies both “bath people” and “shower people” as bathers wash outside the tub, then soak in clean, deep hot water. The owner of this penthouse asked Roberts Hot Tubs for a teak tub next to his shower. Soaking tubs can have straight or sloping sides and can be any shape. They use more water than regular tubs, but since bathers soak when clean, it’s common to add a re-circulating heater and filter. Tub makers offer wooden lids to keep the water hot - in Japan the same water is typically used by the whole family. Photo courtesy of: Roberts Hot Tubs

Natural light is an important factor in creating biophilic spaces. The primary bathroom of this house in Venice, California, sits deep in the plan but has three sources of natural light—a skylight, small window, and translucent glass wall shared with the kitchen.

A 2,500-square-foot backyard off a Portland home was completely overhauled by architect Michael Howells. Its new design uses pavers to divide the yard into sections that include planters, a cedar soaking tub, and a fire pit.

The Lais designed their house to be theirs forever. As such, they were able to make design moves that made sense for themselves but that wouldn't have high resale value, like the Japanese-style master bathroom in the middle of the second floor instead of off of the master bedroom. The traditional setup features bath stools from Muji for washing off.

The main draw of Fukasawa's hut: a bathroom featuring a large, Japanese-style tub with a view.

The custom cedar tub, fabricated by Dovetail, elegantly fits into the master bathroom.

The bathroom includes a walk-in tub.

The ultimate luxury: a hot bath in the clawfoot tub, with the fiberglass door open wide to the woods.

Large clerestory windows face the street at the Higashibatas’ house in Tokyo, optimizing both privacy and natural light within.

A bedroom in a renovated townhouse in Harlem, New York, makes the most of a tight space with orange-tinted pink walls. Pink bedding keeps the space monochromatic but adds depth with a range of reddish tones.

Deep in the Italian countryside a few hours from Rome, a fashion advertising couple left their frenetic life in Milan and remodeled a trio of 15-century buildings into a Japanese-style inn and center for Japanese culture. Their giant Hinoki tub from Bartok Design in Japan was carefully positioned to take advantage of seasonal views through the sliding windows. “The images and scents were extraordinary,” said one Italian visitor to the center who took a soak, “I revisit them in my mind every day.” Photo courtesy of: Bartok Design and WabiSabi Culture Japanese Center

In the master bathroom, a matte Ove tub from Wetstyle is one of Maca’s favorite getaways. The angle of the custom window, designed with a minimal frame to maximize the view, mimics the roofline.

The engawa deck is a traditional Japanese feature. It's a place where guests are often greeted to sit with a casual cup of tea. The David and Mayuko also uses it as a viewing porch toward the back yard for when the kids play in the grass.

At the client’s request the kitchen contains neither upper cabinets (Shino can’t reach them) nor an oven (they only used the old one once—to reheat a pizza). A modular Roche Bobois Mah Jong sofa adds a decorative flourish to the living area while maintaining as low a profile as the traditional Japanese furniture.

The bathrooms are inspired by spa chambers and include Japanese-style soaking tubs.

For the bathroom inside a renovated Hollywood bungalow, architect Noah Walker used a simple palette of gray and white tile, black countertops, and stainless steel fixtures.

Designing two narrow bathrooms–one with an encroaching concrete retaining wall—required major creativity. A wall-mounted Duravit Starck toilet was a big space saver, as was the four-foot-long Kohler soaking tub, a foot shorter than the standard size. duravit.com kohler.com ikea.com

The lower terrace, which features a hot tub, is farther down the hill to immerse its users in the landscape.

Japanese showers are usually set low down so the bather can sit on a stool and scrub, then pour cedar buckets of hot water over their heads for a refreshing rinse. This homeowner in Venice, California mounted a handheld shower head on the wall for added flexibility. The drain is under the removable cedar floor slats, keeping the room design uncluttered. Wood tubs are cleaned with a simple rinse and last for decades, as the antiseptic properties of cedar guard against mold and rot. This ofuro was designed by Santiago Ortiz and fabricated by Bartok Design.

The studio’s second floor serves as a library. The sunken bathtub offers interrupted sightlines across the space and out into the backyard. The tub, like the library’s floor, is made of concrete.

The top of the house is dedicated to a dining area and a kitchen outfitted with steel-topped cabinets from Sanwa Company. Read more about this dimensional three-storied Japanese home here.

What advice would you give an architect taking on a similar project for the first time? JH: It's critical to have several long conversations with the residents. It's different when you're doing a childcare center or school, but with a residence you really learn about the individuals. It's important to get a feel for how the family lives and listen to them closely. You can spend your entire fee on research and not be any closer to solving the design problems. Listening is critical to designing a successful residence for someone who has special needs kids.

An Almond bathtub by Porcelanosa is accented by a tub filler from Hansgrohe.

In the master bathroom, Chris clad the tub and walls in Carrara marble. An AJ Wall sconce by Arne Jacobsen for Louis Poulsen sheds some light on bathtub reading.

The couple asked for a “no maintenance, not low maintenance” backyard. However, Shino tends to “Carlsbad's largest public bathroom for cats” (otherwise known as their Japanese-style rock garden) about once a month. Don't miss a word of Dwell! Download our FREE app from iTunes, friend us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter!

The back of the house has sliding doors that open far enough to expose the entire livingroom to the families' back yard.

The family sits around, and under in the case of four-year-old Kaz’ma, the sunken table for a snack. Makiko made the covers of the mats her mother sent from Japan by hand. The black lamp is from Ikea.

The ground floor of the Front House holds an onsen-inspired bathroom with an outdoor tub/shower that faces the courtyard and “encourages relaxation and the spirit of communal bathing.”

Concrete walls provide privacy in the main bathroom, where the Holtzes installed a deep hinoki cypress soaking tub.

A family’s getaway in the California desert includes a spa-like main bath with a large soaking tub that connects to an outdoor shower.

Designer Christiane Hogner, Bruxelles

Grace Boyd’s favorite room has a stunning view of Puget Sound reflected in the Hinoki tub she had custom-sized by Roberts Hot Tubs. The clean lines of soaking tubs “work well in conventional bathrooms,” says Roberts’ Andrew Harris, “no need to make the whole room Japanese-style.” Grace echoed the grey of the sea and sky in the sinks and the silvery pebbles around the tub. After 32 years in West Seattle, she asked architect Mark Travers to build her a new house in the same spot- she couldn’t bear to lose her view. Tubs are popping up in real estate listings as a selling point; new owners can have an existing tub sanded to reveal a fresh layer of pristine scented wood. Photo courtesy of: Roberts Hot Tubs

Kelly Milford helps son Adam out of the hot tub nestled on a wood deck in back of the house. The exterior paint is Wrought Iron by Benjamin Moore.

Windows are scattered throughout the house in order to let in natural light wherever possible, while custom furniture with clean, minimal lines contributes to the natural palette.