Inspired by a bird’s flight, the Roof / Birds guesthouse blends into a wooded hillside overlooking Mount Asama, the most active volcano in Honshu, the main island of Japan. In a well-known habitat for wild birds, the building is divided into a series of fragmented constructions with the intention of minimizing the impact of architecture in the forest and to let animals move freely. The built elements are thus reduced to a collection of small sloping roofs at different angles that seem to fly through the dense forest, and that open and close according to their relationship with the surrounding landscape. Formed by deep wood beams, the roofs float over glass walls and rest on solid steel columns. The reduced thickness of the profiles – just 65 millimeters – contrasts with the size and repetition of the beams, making it look as if the roof were floating in the air, and maximizing transparency at ground level. A platform that adapts to the site connects the spaces and spans the differences in height so that the topography is transformed as little as possible. Following this same objective, the rooms are arranged in longitudinal bands that shift forward or backward depending on the context.