An Instant House was built in Kumamoto in 2 hours. A technology to create a place to sleep first in disaster-stricken areas that cannot wait for temporary housing
In a town of 39 degrees, a white dome stood up
At 16:27 on July 28, 2026, a magnitude 7.1 earthquake occurred in the Kumamoto region of Kumamoto Prefecture. Uki City and Hikawa Town recorded a seismic intensity of 7. This was the first time a seismic intensity of 7 had been observed in the country since the 2024 Noto Peninsula earthquake, and the first time in Kumamoto Prefecture in 10 years and 3 months since the 2016 earthquake¹.
Disaster reports always leave the same lingering frustration. While footage of evacuation centers is shown, the people who haven't gone there are not seen. Some have pets. Some cannot sleep in front of others. Some do not want to leave their damaged homes. The reasons vary, and as a result, some people spend the night in their cars. One week after the occurrence, approximately 8,200 people were living in evacuation conditions¹³. This time, extreme heat was added to the situation. On August 3, Yatsushiro City recorded a maximum temperature of 39 degrees². Kumamoto Prefecture had been continuously calling for caution against heatstroke and economy class syndrome³.
On the morning of August 1, a white dome stood up in Hikawa Town. It took about 5 hours until the first unit was completed.
The family of Shingo Inasaki (51), a company employee in Hikawa Town whose home was severely tilted and who had been sleeping in his car since the day of the disaster, is cooling off inside that very unit, which was built on August 3². A person who had been constantly worried about economy class syndrome entered an air-conditioned room in his own yard.
This is the "Instant House" developed by Professor Keisuke Kitagawa (52) of the Nagoya Institute of Technology. The professor, along with his wife and researcher Tamami (52), is proceeding with construction in Hikawa Town and Yatsushiro City, and plans to install 100 units during August⁴.
I am writing this article to praise this house.
The contents of a house built in 2 hours
The construction method is so simple that it is anticlimactic when you hear it.
Place a bag-shaped polyethylene sheet on the ground and blow air into it with a blower. It inflates like a balloon in about 5 minutes⁵. Then, spray foamed urethane insulation from the inside to harden it. The thickness is about 4 centimeters⁴. Since the sprayed insulation becomes the structure itself, no framework is needed. Each unit can be installed in about 2 hours².
What is completed is a building that looks like a kamakura, with a diameter of 5 meters, a height of 4.3 meters, and a conical roof⁴. The interior is about 12 tatami mats in size. An Asahi Shimbun article describes it as "two parking spaces"². Considering that the space allocated to one person at an evacuation center is about 1 tatami mat, the significance of this difference needs no explanation.
It looks weak, but it is not. It can withstand winds of 80 meters per second, does not collapse even at a seismic intensity of 6 upper, and can withstand snow accumulation of up to 60 centimeters (300 centimeters in demonstrations)⁶. Because the whole thing is a continuous membrane, the weak point of a joint between the roof and the wall does not exist in the first place. The base is fixed to the ground by bolting at regular intervals. Whether it is soil, grass, or asphalt, it can be built by changing the fasteners.
And what is most effective this time is the insulation and the air conditioner that can be attached to the wall². The same technology that was distributed in the Noto winter is working in the opposite direction in the Kumamoto summer. Insulation is often thought of as a tool for cold, but in reality, it is a tool for "cutting ties with the outside temperature," and it functions the same way against 40-degree outdoor temperatures.
The service life is 20 to 30 years⁴. The connotation of "something to be torn down eventually" that the word temporary housing carries does not apply to this house.
The secret to the speed is half technology, half system
This is where I find this house most interesting.
If you ask whether the construction of emergency temporary housing is slow, that is not the case. On August 3, 6 days after the disaster, Kumamoto Prefecture started work on 4 housing complexes in Uki City and Hikawa Town⁷. As an administrative procedure, it is quite fast. Even so, it takes more time from the start of construction until move-in is possible. Laying the foundation, transporting materials, building, and inspecting. As long as it is built as a residence, those processes cannot be skipped.
The Instant House is not skipping those processes. It is standing in a place where they do not need to be skipped.
Because Instant Houses are not fixed to the land, they are treated as "non-buildings" (though interpretations may vary depending on administrative decisions)¹⁴. They are classified similarly to temporary tents or warehouses, so they do not require building confirmation procedures⁵. Therefore, they can be built as long as there is available land. Like Mr. Inasaki, one can build them in their own yard.
I believe this is not a matter of technology, but of design. By extracting only the necessary functions of a home (sheltering from rain and wind, insulating against heat and cold, and providing a safe place to sleep) and establishing it outside the legal category of a residence, it works. The speed did not come from the materials being fast. It was born from the decision to "not build it as a house."
Moreover, building it in a yard means that disaster victims do not have to leave their land. Temporary housing complexes are often built in locations far from the original community. In fact, the joy expressed first by a resident who built one in front of their home on August 1st was not about the coolness or the space, but about not having to leave this place¹⁵. This house is kind in that it treats the desire to stay near a destroyed home as a premise rather than something to be endured.
"If you're a university professor, build it next week"
The origin of this house lies in 2011.
Professor Kitagawa says that at the time, he was working hard to hone his design skills, wanting to realize beautiful and cool architecture⁸. After the Great East Japan Earthquake, he visited the gymnasium of Ishinomaki Junior High School, which was being used as an evacuation center. As he was about to leave, two boys in the third and fourth grades of elementary school took his hands and led him to a place where the school grounds were visible.
That is where those words came out. Why does it take three to six months to build temporary housing over there? If you're a university professor, build it next week⁸.
The professor later said that this moment changed his life 180 degrees⁹.
From then on, it was a series of failures. The turning point was when he saw a down jacket that had been crumpled up small in his bag expand and return to its original shape the moment he took it out⁸. The idea of filling the entire building with air comes from that. The core of the design, where the insulation becomes the structure, is an imitation of a down jacket.
It took shape in 2016⁶ and was put into practical use in 2019⁴. About 300 units were built in Ishikawa Prefecture during the 2023 Turkey-Syria earthquake, the Morocco earthquake¹², the war zone in Ukraine², and the 2024 Noto Peninsula earthquake¹⁵. The way they were used in Noto goes beyond just housing. They served as evacuation spaces for those who could not go to designated shelters, medical rooms for infectious disease isolation, lodging for support bases, places where children could play without worrying about the eyes of others, and evacuation with pets¹⁶. This white dome individually answers each of the "reasons for not being able to go to an evacuation center" that I wrote about at the beginning.
On July 31, 2026, the professor flew from Chubu Airport to Kumamoto. He said he was bringing all the materials because he was told to "build it immediately"⁹. The initial plan was for about 50 units¹⁵. That increased to 100 units in a few days⁴. This means that requests are arriving at a speed that outpaces the schedule.
There is someone who is still responding to the "build it next week" said to him by a child 15 years ago. For this reason alone, I respect this technology.
500,000 yen per unit. What is lacking is not technology, but money
Let me talk about the reality.
The installation cost per unit is approximately 500,000 yen, including air conditioner installation². This cost is fully covered by donations, and there is no burden on the disaster victims². The "Instant House Fund for People in Need of Housing on Earth," launched by the Nagoya Institute of Technology in 2024, serves as the recipient¹⁰.
For 100 units, that is 50 million yen. And as of August 2, Professor Kitagawa himself has been publicizing the shortage of funds¹⁰.
In other words, the limiting factor for this initiative is not technology or manpower, but funding. There are already houses that can be built in a few hours, there are people who can build them, and there are people waiting for them, yet the money is not coming in fast enough—it is the most wasteful kind of bottleneck.
However, it is not as if the system relies solely on donations. This technology already has a business circuit. Since 2018, development has been carried out as a joint research project between the Nagoya Institute of Technology and LIFULL, and the group company LIFULL ArchiTech has been commercially deploying them as glamping facilities and temporary stores. From Hokkaido to Okinawa, there is a track record of over 100 units built commercially alone¹⁷, and Professor Kitagawa himself serves as the Representative Director and President of this company⁶. Earning money through glamping in peacetime and delivering to disaster areas in times of emergency. Because research and business are connected within the same person, the speed of response to disaster areas is achieved. I really like this structure.
Still, the source of funding for free provision during disasters is donations. The problem of who should be responsible for stockpiling also remains. For local governments to handle it alone, the cost of maintaining storage for something that could happen at any time is heavy. If we are to build a system that can deliver to the site wherever it happens in the country, that should be the government's job. The Disaster Management Agency is currently preparing for its establishment around November 2026¹¹. On television, Mr. Toru Hashimoto commented to the effect that political power should be used precisely at times like this, and that if necessary, it should be increased all at once¹³. I agree. If they are to call themselves the command center for proactive disaster prevention, having housing that can be built in a few hours stocked from peacetime should be a fairly straightforward task.
What this house is distributing is peace of mind
Watching the local news, what stayed with me most was not the performance figures.
It was the story about the fear of things falling while inside the house. In this earthquake, there have been over 520 aftershocks with a seismic intensity of 1 or higher by August 4th¹. After 10 days of living while looking up at the ceiling every time it shakes, entering a place where nothing falls from above—the words 'I slept soundly' come out.
A 4.3-meter-high ceiling can only be described as 'a sense of openness' on a performance chart. But for those affected by the disaster, a low ceiling becomes a feeling of oppression, and that oppression becomes fear. This house designs against fear.
And the fact that it lasts for 20 to 30 years also means that this house is not 'temporary.' Professor Kitagawa says he hopes it will be used as accommodation or similar facilities even after reconstruction⁴. Built on the premise of being torn down, and torn down when the deadline arrives. This white dome quietly breaks that common sense.
Built in a few hours. Built for 500,000 yen. Built in the garden. Lasts for 20 years.
When you line them up, this is not an improved version of temporary housing. It is something completely different, a product called a house that has been redesigned not from performance, but from the 'moment it is needed.'
As someone who used to do research, I know a little bit. How long the road is from an idea in a laboratory to being useful to someone in the outside world. Most technologies become papers and sleep on bookshelves.
I'm not saying that's bad. But this technology was different. The idea, which started from a down jacket in a bag, walked out of the papers over 15 years while repeating failures, and in the summer of 2026, it became an air-conditioned 12-tatami mat room in the garden of someone afraid of aftershocks. Tonight, someone will sleep soundly there.
The boys who said 'Build it next week' in Ishinomaki back then must be in their mid-20s now. Your words were certainly accepted as homework. And now, they have become a 15-year-long answer, standing in a garden in Kumamoto.
Technology and ideas can improve people's lives this much. This is what it means to be a researcher, and I am writing this article because I want the world to know it. So today, I will write without reservation and finish.
Professor Kitagawa, your research is truly cool.
Donations are being accepted through the Nagoya Institute of Technology's fund page.
If you found this article interesting, please let me know with a 'Like'.
Comments are also very welcome. I use them as a reference for what to dig into next.
This is the video that led me to learn about this instance. Please take a look.
Sources
Kumamoto Earthquake (2026) / Overview of the earthquake and number of aftershocks
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/熊本地震_(2026年)Asahi Shimbun 'New homes "Instant Houses" appear one after another in the heat-stricken disaster area: Kumamoto Earthquake'
https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/387c06f9ad4117c069830cea8245fd7fd74701f8Kumamoto Prefecture 'Information regarding the 2026 Kumamoto Earthquake'
https://www.pref.kumamoto.jp/soshiki/1/274517.htmlKumamoto Nichinichi Shimbun "<2026 Kumamoto Earthquake> Free provision of 'Instant Houses' to disaster victims for temporary housing in Hikawa Town and other areas"
https://kumanichi.com/articles/2021460Tokai TV NEWS "Foldable, easy to transport and build... 'Instant House' developed by a professor following the Great East Japan Earthquake"
https://www.tokai-tv.com/tokainews/feature/article_20230309_25832Aktio Note "Keisuke Kitagawa | The Instant House realized through the exact opposite approach to architecture"
https://note.aktio.co.jp/lifestyle/20260623-1030.htmlKumamoto Prefecture "Regarding the progress of construction-type emergency housing due to the '2026 Kumamoto Earthquake'"
https://www.pref.kumamoto.jp/soshiki/117/275490.htmlKeisuke Kitagawa Laboratory "Instant House Information"
https://instanthouse.jp/info.htmlCBC Television "'Instant House' that can be installed in a few hours: Demand for installation grows in areas affected by the Kumamoto Earthquake"
https://topics.smt.docomo.ne.jp/article/hicbc/nation/hicbc-2850217TECTURE MAG "Supporting Kumamoto Earthquake disaster areas: Nagoya Institute of Technology's Keisuke Kitagawa Laboratory calls for donations to the 'Instant House Fund for People in Need of Housing on Earth'"
https://mag.tecture.jp/culture/20260803-155961/Nikkei "Government decides on basic policy for establishing the Disaster Management Agency, including recommendation rights to other ministries and agencies"
https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXZQOUA263KK0W5A221C2000000/Nagoya Institute of Technology "Professor Keisuke Kitagawa is conducting support activities to provide Instant Houses in areas affected by the Kumamoto Earthquake"
https://www.nitech.ac.jp/news/news/2026/14175.htmlKansai Television "A white circular 'house' in the disaster area. Its name is 'Instant House'" (Shunkan LIVE Toretatte! Broadcast August 3, 2026)
https://www.ktv.jp/news/feature/260803-instanthouse/LIFULL "LIFULL ArchiTech begins sales of 'Instant House Mobile', which can be transported by car"
https://lifull.com/news/48132/TV Asahi (ANN) "Kumamoto Earthquake: 'Can be built and lived in immediately' Instant House installed in Hikawa Town"
https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/0bb46a8211818b14ead742f7bd9da2227b5c5765LIFULL ArchiTech "Architectural technology that saves lives in disaster areas. Disaster prevention applications and the future of the 'Instant House' that gained attention during the Noto Earthquake"
https://instantproducts.lifull.net/media/disaster-stricken-area/LIFULL "LIFULL ArchiTech collaborates with Tokyu's private room sharing business for the assembly-type 'Instant House Purge Type'"
https://lifull.com/news/30051/