Abstract:This article focuses on the residential design led by independent architects in Japan after the World War II. Unlike mass housing, which are policy-oriented, prototype shared and technical concentrated, they have always been on the edge of the mainstream residential design. It is of a relatively free idea and significant differences between individual designs. However, through sorting out factors such as the changes in the Japanese people’s lifestyle after the Meiji Restoration and the influence of Western trends in the academic world, it finds that behind the creation of detached houses led by vanguard architects, there are three certain features: (1) paradox of Japaneseness; (2) anti-market behavior and gameplay; and (3) reconstruction of family and urban functions.