With ideal sites in populated urban areas largely a luxury of the past, Our House in the City aims to present designs that have overcome site constraints to successfully and creatively slot into the urban puzzle. This new breed of “21st-century townhouse” architecture also streamlines living for its occupants, according to the book’s foreword.

The Japanese, masters of micro, lead the way and of the 33 homes reviewed the majority are in Japan, with others in Europe, Brazil, Vietnam and Korea. The dwellings presented are inspiring and surprising: like House SH by Hiroshi Nakamura & NAP, a monolith in suburban Tokyo with an exterior that bulges like a pregnant belly to the street, reminiscent of Anish Kapoor’s sculpture When I am Pregnant. The white, womb-like interior is not only a sublime, cocooning place in which to lounge, it also serves to reflect natural light throughout the other storeys via glass panels.

Add to that a chapel conversion in the UK, a remodelled worker’s cottage in Melbourne and a gas station repurposed into a home-cum-gallery in Berlin and there’s something to please every home-obsessed reader. A few homes don’t fit the urban brief but Our House in the City offers a wonderfully voyeuristic trip nonetheless.

Our House in the City: New Urban Homes and Architecture, edited by Sven Ehmann and Sofia Borges, Gestalten, $110.