The Nakagin Capsule Tower returns to public view in a new light, as MoMA in New York opens an exhibition centered on its half-century lifespan. Built in Tokyo’s Ginza district in 1972 and dismantled in 2022, the structure was once among the clearest architectural expressions of Metabolism in Japan, a movement that sought to mirror natural growth and transformation in the built environment. Now, through a single, fully restored capsule and a constellation of archival materials, MoMA reactivates that legacy with the goal of inspiring inquiry over nostalgia.

Presented in the exhibition is capsule A1305, originally situated on the uppermost floor. For its display, it has been returned to near-original condition. Fragments of other salvaged units complete the restoration, from its modular furnishings to the audio controls and Sony color TV that defined its compact domesticity. Surrounding the capsule are more than 40 materials drawn from the tower’s five-decade history — models, promotional leaflets, film reels, and interviews that reveal how these micro-units adapted to lives far beyond their initial purpose. In a city shaped by constant renewal, this retrospective probes what it means to preserve an architectural concept. The Many Lives of the Nakagin Capsule Tower is on view at MoMA from July 10th, 2025 until July 12th, 2026.

installation view of The Many Lives of the Nakagin Capsule Tower, on view at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, from July 10th, 2025, through July 12th, 2026 | photo by Jonathan Dorado

kishō Kurokawa’s Unfolding Vision

MoMA exhibits The Many Lives of the Nakagin Capsule Tower as an investigation into the iconic structure, which was originally imagined by architect Kishō Kurokawa as a machine for living that could regenerate itself. While the concrete towers were to remain as infrastructural anchors, the capsules were intended to be swapped out as needs evolved. While that replacement never came, the life of the tower defied stillness. The museum’s curatorial team, led by Evangelos Kotsioris and Paula Vilaplana de Miguel, foregrounds the tower’s informal transformations — capsules turned into galleries, DJ booths, or quiet spaces of solitude — bringing a portrait of architecture shaped by use that transcends its intended programming.

By acquiring capsule A1305 in 2023, MoMA ensured a rare physical survival of a building long dismissed as unmaintainable. It is one of just fourteen capsules worldwide to have been carefully reassembled in original form. Visitors will be able to experience the unit in full during selected member activations, reinforcing the tower’s original intent as a space to be inhabited. The Nakagin Capsule Tower’s presence at MoMA sits within the museum’s wider ambition to question permanence, authorship, and the mutable nature of design.

Kishō Kurokawa in front of the completed Nakagin Capsule Tower, 1974. image by Tomio Ohashi

Extending the Conversation around nakagin capsule tower

MoMA’s exhibition The Many Lives of the Nakagin Capsule Tower extends beyond the gallery. A companion book authored by Kotsioris for the MoMA One on One series explores the structure’s life cycle, from its speculative roots to its final days. With rarely published documents and firsthand accounts from the building’s last residents, the volume deepens the narrative around this experimental habitat. A suite of programs in partnership with Japan Society will also unfold throughout the exhibition’s yearlong run, framing the project within both its original context and its new American audience.

Kisho Kurokawa, Architect & Associates (Tokyo, est. 1962). Nakagin Capsule Tower, Tokyo. 1970–72. exterior view. 1972. image by Tomio Ohashi

installation view of The Many Lives of the Nakagin Capsule Tower, on view at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, from July 10th, 2025, through July 12th, 2026 | photo by Jonathan Dorado

installation view of The Many Lives of the Nakagin Capsule Tower, on view at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, from July 10th, 2025, through July 12th, 2026 | photo by Jonathan Dorado

images from Nakagin Capsule Style (Tokyo: Soshisha, 2020), showing Wakana Nitta (aka Cosplay Koe-chan) in her capsule, which she uses as a DJ-booth. courtesy Tatsuyuki Maeda / The Nakagin Capsule Tower Preservation and Restoration Project, Tokyo, Japan

night time at the Nakagin Capsule Tower, with Mr. Takayuki Sekine seen through the window of capsule B1004, 2016. image © Jeremie Souteyrat

Kisho Kurokawa, Architect & Associates (Tokyo, est. 1962). Capsule A1305 from the Nakagin Capsule Tower. 1970–72; restored 2022–23. Steel, wood, paint, plastics, cloth, polyurethane, glass, ceramic, and electronics, 8′ 4 3/8″ × 8′ 10 5/16″ × 13′ 10 9/16″ (255 × 270 ×423 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Jo Carole and Ronald S. Lauder, Alice and Tom Tisch, and the Nakagin Capsule Tower Preservation and Restoration Project, Tokyo

installation view of The Many Lives of the Nakagin Capsule Tower, on view at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, from July 10th, 2025, through July 12th, 2026 | photo by Jonathan Dorado

Noritaka Minami. B1004 I, from the series 1972 (2010–22). 2011. archival pigment print, 20 × 25″ (101.6 × 127 cm) image © Noritaka Minami

Noritaka Minami. A503 I, from the series 1972 (2010–22). 2017. archival pigment print, 20 × 25″ (101.6 × 127 cm) image © Noritaka Minami

‘A twenty-first century home that thoroughly pursues functionality: Nakagin Capsule Manshon (Ginza),’ cover of promotional brochure for the Nakagin Company, 1971. image courtesy Tatsuyuki Maeda / The Nakagin Capsule Tower Preservation and Restoration Project, Tokyo, Japan

Kiyoshi Awazu. poster included with Kurokawa Kishō no sakuhin (Kisho Kurokawa’s work) (Tokyo: Bijutsu shuppan-sha, 1970). 1970. screenprint, 40 3/16 × 28 9/16″ (102 × 72.5 cm). image © Kiyoshi Awazu

project info:

name: The Many Lives of the Nakagin Capsule Tower

museum: Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) | @themuseumofmodernart

on view: July 10th, 2025 — July 12th, 2026

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‘100 colors no.53,’ the latest installment in Emmanuelle Moureaux’s ongoing ‘100 colors path’ series, has opened at Takanawa Gateway City in Tokyo. Composed of 2,400 vertical lines, each rendered in one of 100 precisely selected colors, the work is both a spatial structure and a temporal map, charting a century’s worth of imagined futures.

The piece is installed in the newly developed Gateway Park by East Japan Railway Company, and marks the launch of Takanawa Gateway City, an urban complex built around a central transport hub in Minato Ward. As the first public installation unveiled with the complex’s debut, ‘100 colors path’ sets the tone for a neighborhood defined by openness and movement. ‘100 colors no. 53’ will be open to the public until July 21st, 2025.

images © Daisuke Shima

emmanuelle moureaux’s map of Color and Time

While Emmanuelle Moureaux’s ‘100 colors no.53,’ reads as a shifting gradient from across the Tokyo plaza, its internal logic is revealed up close as an accumulation of numbers layered within a calibrated spectrum. This way, the Tokyo-based French architect‘s characteristic use of color is an architectural material rather than surface treatment. Each line is inscribed with a year, beginning in 2025 and continuing sequentially through 2124.

The structural rhythm of the work is defined by uniform spacing and repetition. Lines are suspended vertically to create a passage that is simultaneously transparent and immersive. The numbers printed on the lines come in and out of view as visitors move through the piece, a kinetic effect heightened by the optical interference patterns of overlapping colors.

Emmanuelle Moureaux installs ‘100 colors path’ in Tokyo’s Takanawa Gateway City

a pathway carved through immersive color

At the heart of Tokyo’s ‘100 colors path’ installation is a central corridor which cuts through the colored grid. Emmanuelle Moureaux carves this passage to invite entry, allowing visitors to become momentarily absorbed in the spectrum of time. As people walk through the corridor, the visual rhythm shifts with their movement. It is a simple gesture, but one that transforms the installation from an object to inhabit into an environment to experience.

Inside, the work offers a tactile proximity to each color and year. The vertical density flattens at certain angles and deepens at others, underscoring the relationship between time and space in architectural perception. The effect is neither theatrical nor didactic — it is precise, open-ended, and responsive to movement.

the installation consists of 2,400 vertical lines arranged in 100 precisely selected colors

Beyond the park installation, the concept of ‘100 colors path’ has been extended throughout the station district. Moureaux designed related graphics for both north and south ticket gates of Takanawa Gateway Station, as well as the surrounding street flags. A complementary augmented reality experience titled 100 colors city allows visitors to engage with the installation digitally, activating the concept through smartphone interaction.

During the exhibition period, a public workshop invited participants to search for color in their everyday surroundings — an approach that reinforces the project’s central theme of color as a framework for observation and time. This alignment between physical installation and public programming strengthens the architectural relevance of the work in its urban setting.

a central corridor invites visitors to walk through the immersive color field

Moureaux’s 100 colors path continues her exploration of how color can be used to shape physical space and collective imagination. The numbering of each line, paired with a clear chronological arc, gives structure to what could otherwise be a purely aesthetic field. This linking of color and time brings a conceptual framework that is visually inviting, but also conceptually complex.

The installation references both the future and the present. The decision to begin during Takanawa Gateway City’s inaugural year of 2025 grounds the piece in its immediate context. Meanwhile, the choice to extend one hundred years forward transforms the project into a durational meditation on memory and urban growth.

each line is engraved with a year from 2025 to 2124, creating a spatial timeline of 100 years

the numbers appear and disappear as viewers move for a dynamic, perspective-led experience

an AR extension called ‘100 colors city’ invites digital interaction via smartphones

the installation uses color as an architectural material to organize time and space

project info:

name: 100 colors no.53 ‘100 colors path’

architect: Emmanuelle Moureaux | @emmanuellemoureaux

location: Gateway Park, Takanawa Gateway City, Tokyo, Japan

on view: March 27th — July 21st, 2025

photography: © Daisuke Shima | @daisuke_shima_photography

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In Bunkyo, Tokyo, architect Takeshi Hosaka designs Yayoi House for a family of four, rooting domestic life in an ecosystem of plants, water, and light. The reinforced concrete residence spans two stories and prioritizes cyclical living. From rooftop rainwater runoff to edible wall-climbing vines, the home integrates natural processes within the city, creating a resilient, self-sustaining habitat.

The decision to build only two stories instead of three was deliberate—an intentional move to create a vertical canvas where sunlight and moonlight could refract across raw concrete surfaces. Two large, semicircular skylights, set diagonally from one another, channel celestial light into the heart of the home. This luminous core opens up into a generous, nearly six-meter-high space that unites the living, dining, and kitchen areas. Surrounding this central volume are the terrace, the children’s rooms, the master bedroom, and the wife’s hobby room, where aquariums and fish tanks introduce a living element to the interior.

all images by Noboru Inoue

yayoi house integrates nature into everyday life

At first glance, Yayoi House stands out for its unique environmental approach. Tokyo-based architect Takeshi Hosaka wraps the structure with greenery. Bitter gourd vines scale the walls, biotopes cluster at the ground, and rainwater drips openly from roof to earth. Water flows along uncovered gutters, down the exterior walls, and into a curated biotope near the entrance. Initially maintained by the family, this aquatic microcosm is later left to self-regulate, evolving into a miniature ecosystem of plankton, plants, and fish. The system is both visible and experiential: glimpsed from a semicircular window inside the foyer and animated during daily rituals like entering the home or bathing beside a planted inner garden.

Hosaka also threads in a subtle food cycle. Waste from the kitchen garbage processor nourishes the terrace plants, yielding nutrient-rich soil. This closed-loop logic of waste, water, and growth exemplifies the architect’s intention, which is to embed the basic elements of nature within the city and in daily life.

Takeshi Hosaka designs Yayoi House for a family of four

the reinforced concrete residence spans two stories

the architect carves two large, semicircular skylights, set diagonally from one another

the skylights channel celestial light into the heart of the home

this luminous core opens up into a generous, nearly six-meter-high space

uniting the living, dining, and kitchen areas

a vertical canvas for sunlight and moonlight to refract

light reflects across raw concrete surfaces

the terrace, the children’s rooms, the master bedroom, and the wife’s hobby room surround the central volume

rooting domestic life in a deliberate ecosystem of plants, water, and light

Yayoi house prioritizes cyclical living

a resilient, self-sustaining habitat

project info:

name: Yayoi House
architect: Takeshi Hosaka Architects | @takeshi_hosaka_official

location: Bunkyo, Tokyo, Japan

site area: 202.86 square meters

building area: 120.92 square meters

total floor area: 218.55 square meters

lead architect: Takeshi Hosaka 

structure: Kenji Nawa / NAWAKENJI-M

photographer: Noboru Inoue

film: Ryuto Fujii

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Satellites, on view at Prada Aoyama in Tokyo, brings together the elective affinities of two of contemporary culture’s most distinctive storytellers — Danish filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn and Japanese game designer Hideo Kojima. The project transforms the fifth floor of Herzog & de Meuron’s iconic glass structure into an immersive transmission chamber, where cinema, gaming, and design come together to hint at a future common territory made possible by technologies.

The duo has been exchanging ideas for over a decade, and the exhibition turns that ongoing conversation into a physical installation realized as a domestic environment somewhere between a film set and a dream sequence. The first room of the stylized and sparse mid-century apartment is decorated with a bed, lamp, and a rotary phone that seem lifted from a bygone era. Around the space, six television monitors — each retrofitted to resemble small retro-futuristic spacecrafts — float like artifacts, while projecting inside them video portraits of Refn and Kojima speaking to one another in loop about the universal concept of human exchange. The surreal interrelation between these two entities, while surrounded by the familiar, creates a tangible yet distant space that transports visitors into an alternate dimension. Supported by Fondazione Prada, Satellites will remain on view until August 25th, 2025.

all images by Yasuhiro Takagi

nicolas winding refn & hideo kojima imagine a collective future

Each TV is partially dismantled, exposing wires, circuits, and internal components to form an architectural echo of the exhibition itself, which lays bare the machinery of dialogue. Nicolas Winding Refn and Hideo Kojima’s conversation in English and Japanese is broad and unscripted, touching on memory, friendship, authorship, identity, the afterlife, and the strange overlap of real and virtual worlds. The tone is also informal, feeling like two people working things out in real-time, even if they’re separated by medium, language, or physical presence. Their exchange reflects a shared belief that the boundaries between film and gaming are steadily dissolving, and, in the future, may merge into a shared digital dimension.

The second room of Satellites takes this idea further, with a dressing area filled with cassette tapes that allows visitors to listen to AI-translated fragments of the original conversation. Each tape reveals a slightly different version of the dialogue, refracted across languages and interpretations, inviting the audience to reconstruct the exchange in their own way — a nod to Kojima’s nonlinear storytelling style and Refn’s interest in hypnotic worldbuilding and recursive internal spaces. The layering of translations and formats hints at a potential version of a shared digital environment both artists see emerging, which can open up new ways of experiencing ever-evolving narratives collectively.

Satellites brings together the elective affinities of filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn and game designer Hideo Kojima

imagined as a mid-century apartment decorated with a bed, lamp, and a rotary phone

an immersive transmission chamber, where cinema, gaming, and design come together

six television monitors — each retrofitted to resemble small retro-futuristic spacecrafts — float like artifacts

suspended inside them in a bilingual exchange, run videos of Refn and Kojima speaking to one another in loop

each TV is partially dismantled, exposing wires, circuits, and internal components

conversations touch on memory, friendship, identity, death, and the overlap of real and virtual worlds

on view at Prada Aoyama in Tokyo

project info:

name: Satellites

artists: Nicolas Winding Refn | @nwrefn, Hideo Kojima | @hideo_kojima

location: Prada Aoyama, Tokyo, Japan

organized by: Prada | @prada

supported by: Fondazione Prada | @fondazioneprada

dates: 18th April—25th August, 2025

The post nicolas winding refn & hideo kojima craft retro-futuristic digital world at prada aoyama, tokyo appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.

20 years after its completion, the Reversible Destiny Lofts Mitaka, dedicated in theory and spirit to the memory of Helen Keller, remains one of the most enigmatic experiments in residential architecture. With a focus on activating both body and mind, the nine-unit complex in suburban Tokyo was conceived by artists and architects Shusaku Arakawa and Madeline Gins as a house ‘to not to die’ — one which continuously engages and stimulates the occupant.

It comprises three geometric archetypes, including the cube, the sphere, and the tube, each stacked and interlocked into irregular compositions. Affectionately referred to as an ‘ultrachromatic undying house’ by novelist Setouchi Jakuchou, the bright structures are painted inside-out in 14 different colors and formed by spatial irregularities. These elements together mirror the duo’s belief in responsive environments that encourage physical and mental adaptation of their occupants from childhood through to old age.

The lofts were their most ambitious built attempt to translate this philosophy into form. Since opening in 2005, they have continued to serve as residences, educational venues, and cultural spaces, and visitors are now also welcome to book a unit via Airbnb for short stays. Alongside this, the occasion of the 20th anniversary brings with it a new series of public programs and events including a retrospective exhibition.

image via Airbnb

Shusaku Arakawa & Madeline Gins foster space-body connections

Extending the playful, almost irreverent character of the facades, the interiors are no less confrontational. From the uneven elevations in the flooring that invite intuitive navigation and the varying ceiling heights, to the sudden drops, vertical poles, and color-saturated surfaces, each detail is intended to interrupt habitual patterns of movement and perception, keeping the body alert and the mind attentive. Shusaku Arakawa and Madeline Gins once expressed that destiny is not fixed, but something that can be constructed through spatial experience. In that spirit, the Reversible Destiny Lofts Mitaka deviate from architectural neutrality or standardization to invite active, ongoing participation between users and their surroundings in unexpected expressions.

While the lofts’ formal exuberance often draws comparisons to playgrounds or postmodern fantasies, their impact lies in their theoretical intent. The project — realized with the intention to create a house in which ‘not to die’ — is grounded in a bold conviction that architecture can act as a tool to challenge mortality itself. Arakawa and Gins developed what they called ‘procedural architecture,’ a philosophy that positioned the built environment as an active catalyst for cognitive and physical transformation. This experimental typology thus aims to stimulate the senses by offering the possibility to discover the full potential of the body and experience challenging environments.

image courtesy of ARAKAWA+GINS

The relationship between body, mind, and space becomes integral to this idea which, with the experience of climbing, crouching, and rebalancing, reveals the true intent of the architecture. This connection further considers the individual needs of all ages, lifestyles, and physical abilities. Some configurations might seem better suited to a child while others are more suited to an adult. In doing so, the architecture draws attention to and takes into account the differences between individuals. This confrontation with one’s own physical limits is also central to the Reversible Destiny Lofts’ philosophy. As the body changes with age or condition, the architecture remains equally dynamic.

For Arakawa and Gins, this potential for transformation was embodied most powerfully in the life of Helen Keller, to whom the project is dedicated. They regarded Keller as a symbol of overcoming adversity and celebrated her active practice of the principles that the duo manifests across the lofts.

image by Masataka Nakano

image courtesy of ARAKAWA+GINS

image via Airbnb

image via Airbnb

image via Airbnb

image by Masataka Nakano

image via Airbnb

image via Airbnb

image courtesy of ARAKAWA+GINS

image by Masataka Nakano

image courtesy of ARAKAWA+GINS

project info:

name: Reversible Destiny Lofts Mitaka (In Memory of Helen Keller)

architect: Shusaku Arakawa, Madeline Gins | @reversibledestinyloftsmitaka

location: Tokyo, Japan

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In a city where every square meter counts, KOMINORU Design’s Small House on a Corner Lot comes together like game of Tetris. Built with a compact, 30 square-meter footprint in Nakano City, Tokyo, the three-story wooden home demonstrates that good design doesn’t need a lot of room — just a sharp understanding of codes, air, and light.

The Tokyo-based design team cleverly exploits the building regulations of the Japanese city to carve out more volume than one might expect from such a modest footprint. The corner lot status, coupled with semi-fireproof building classification, allowed the architects to expand the building coverage ratio to 80%. The result is a vertical home that feels surprisingly spacious, even generous, despite its micro lot.

images © Katsumasa Tanaka

an exposed wood structure without sacrificing fire safety

KOMINORU Design’s Small House on a Corner Lot sidesteps the usual tradeoff between structural exposure and fire safety. By specifying 120mm-wide columns and beams, the architects could partially expose the wooden frame while maintaining regulatory compliance. Ceiling planes rest atop these beams, raising the perceived height of each floor and adding a sense of openness. It’s a nimble dance between tradition and technicality.

The team makes use of the sloping sky exposure plane on the south side to its advantage, creating a compact rooftop terrace that wouldn’t be possible otherwise. On the steeper north-facing slope, dictated by a 1:1.25 regulation, the architects turned challenge into storage. The bathroom, a space used less frequently, tucks neatly beneath the slanted roofline, with a thoughtfully integrated bathtub that nestles into the angular void.

the Small House on a Corner Lot rises three stories in Tokyo

passive ventilation through a rooftop wind tower strategy

KOMINORU Design transforms the tall, slender form of its Small House on a Corner Lot into a passive climate machine. A ventilation window at the rooftop level pulls air upward through the vertical volume, operating like a contemporary wind tower. Natural ventilation circulates with ease, keeping the interiors cool without relying heavily on mechanical systems.

The project reimagines the role of gardens in dense cities by going vertical. With limited space at ground level, the architects planted greenery above the eaves and lifted the garden to the second floor. From inside, residents can glimpse tree branches and leaves at eye level, lending an experience more typical of a larger, freestanding home.

With this residence, the architects demonstrate how tight constraints can yield unexpected results. It’s a study in how smart regulation use, passive systems, and a touch of green can transform a sliver of land into a full-fledged family home — no compromises necessary, just a shift in how we think about scale.

partially-exposed timber beams raise the ceiling without sacrificing fire safety

a ventilation window at the top creates a passive wind tower

a raised second-floor garden brings greenery into the compact home

the south-facing slope makes room for a rooftop terrace

an angled north-facing wall defines a bathroom and storage space

the architects use building code limitations to inform the design

project info:

name: Small House on a Corner Lot

architect: KOMINORU Design | @kominorudesign

location: Nakano City, Tokyo, Japan

lead architect: Minoru Ko

structure: Ryunosuke Funayama

area: 30 square meters

completion: 2024

photography: © Katsumasa Tanaka | @k_tanaka_photo

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Office Nomura-Sanko, designed by Ryo Kamamatsu of Note Architects, is a workspace that brings people together. Located near a nostalgic shopping street in Tokyo, this locally based construction company wanted a space that felt open and welcoming to the community. A unique 910-millimeter-wide Hangen space, a Japanese module, centers the design, reimagined into a flexible Hangen tangent. This adaptable space creates different experiences—an engawa-like veranda, a traditional feature that serves as a transition between indoors and outdoors, a skylit workspace, and a Hangen garden—all reinforcing a link between the office and the city.

From the outside, the silver Galvalume steel exterior helps the building blend into its residential surroundings. The most visible corner of the site is transformed into a gallery space, showcasing the work of the company and inviting the community to engage with it.

all images courtesy of Note Architects

Office Nomura-Sanko Adapts to Its Surroundings in tokyo

While analyzing the building, the Japanese team of Note Architects discovered existing 910-millimeter-wide gaps, once used for hallways and closets. Instead of seeing them as limitations, they turned these spaces into opportunities. The Hangen tangent acts as a buffer between the inside and outside. Facing the street, it becomes an Engawa, inviting passersby to pause and engage. Inside, it transitions into a casual area for meetings or breaks, creating an open, airy feel within a dense urban setting.

Polycarbonate skylights bring in soft, natural light while maintaining privacy, allowing employees to focus without feeling closed off. The open-riser staircase enhances the sense of openness, offering views of the city below and the sky above. Large windows create visual connections to the outside world, making the workspace feel more expansive and dynamic.

Office Nomura-Sanko incorporates elements of traditional Japanese design to make Office Nomura-Sanko feel warm and inviting. A reused wooden sliding door acts as a flexible partition—easily opening to welcome guests or closing for private conversations. The Hangen garden, created by removing an extended part of the building, brings nature into the workspace. Meanwhile, the half-room facing the street functions like an Engawa, offering a cozy, informal place to rest—similar to how an elderly neighbor might sit and relax after a walk.

the stairs and veranda-like space provide an appropriate distance from the city

the most prominent corner of the site will be used as a gallery space to showcase the company’s achievements

the workspace has few windows, allowing for concentration

this adaptable space creates different experiences

employees can take a break in the back room

the polycarbonate skylight casts a soft light

this adaptable space creates different experiences

from the staircase, you can see outside to the front and to the first floor

the Hangen garden is created by removing an extended part of the building

project info:

name: Office Nomura-sanko
architect: Note Architects | @notearchitects
location: Tokyo, Japan

lead designer: Ryo Kamamatsu

designboom has received this project from our DIY submissions feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here.

edited by: thomai tsimpou | designboom

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Suzuko Yamada Architects’ Nakano House isn’t so much built as it is carefully wedged into a 26-square-meter pocket of Tokyo. Despite its compact footprint, this Brutalist dwelling makes a surprisingly grand statement. Designed for a couple and their two cats, the house treats architecture less as a set of rooms and more like a curated arrangement of elemental forces: concrete, light, air — and cats, of course. ‘As long as there was an outer shell for living and space for the cats to run around,’ the clients said, ‘the rest could come together over time.’ This care-free brief is just the kind of prompt on which Japanese architect Suzuko Yamada thrives.

images © Kei Sasaki

A compact Concrete home in tokyo

Suzuko Yamada Architects approaches its Nakano House by occupying the entire lot edge-to-edge, constructing a thick concrete perimeter that at once shields and defines the interior parameters. Inside, essentials like the kitchen, bath, and toilet coexist with less conventional features: cat walkways, handrails, and stairs that feel more sculptural than functional. ‘These components feel oversized in relation to the house,’ the architects explain. ‘Their scale is the same — or even larger — than the rooms themselves.’ In this compact home, there’s no single viewpoint that reveals the full picture. Instead, architecture becomes a series of tactile fragments: the cool dampness of raw concrete, soft shafts of light, the faint scuff of feline paws.

Suzuko Yamada designs the compact, Brutalist home for a couple and their two cats

suzuko yamada’s ‘string of voids’

Inside its Nakano House, Suzuko Yamada Architects orchestrates a choreography of voids. Life, it seems, happens not within rooms but in the negative space between forms. Activities like cooking or laundry become spatial negotiations between monolithic elements. ‘The family of objects appears to have looked for and found their places within the structure,’ the architects note, describing a kind of architectural natural selection. The two cats traverse this new terrain with ease, moving through openings and around corners, trailing breezes that thread the structure with fresh air and ambient noise from the street. 

Nakano House occupies the entire 26 square meter lot in a dense Tokyo neighborhood

The architects reject the idea of a ‘seamless integration’ between architecture and life. Instead, they set up a productive friction. Light from the street collides with concrete. Air tangles with handrails. Cats confront gravity. ‘Both life and nature are in tension with the architecture,’ they write. ‘They exist together and sometimes connect, but never blend.’ The result is a house that feels more like a chunk of urban geology than a home — a Brutalist mountain lodged in the cityscape, unyielding yet strangely poetic. In resisting comfort, it creates something oddly comforting, a space that’s alive precisely because it’s not trying to be.

two staircases and cat walkways are treated as core structural elements

the interior is defined by raw concrete surfaces and oversized architectural elements

no single viewpoint reveals the entire interior space at once

light, air, and feline movement animate the rigid concrete structure

life and architecture are said to coexist in tension rather than harmony

project info:

name: Nakano House

architect: Suzuko Yamada Architects | @yamadasuzuko

location: Tokyo, Japan

area: 52 square meters

completion: 2024

photography: © Kei Sasaki

lead architects: Suzuko Yamada
project team: Suzuko Yamada, Malibu Fukuda
structural engineer: TECTONICA Yoshinori Suzuki, Kakeru Tsuruta
construction: Kudo Construction Firm Jin Otagiri

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In Tokyo Midtown’s lawn, Marble Mountain by Suzuko Yamada Architects rises like a mini landscape for kids to climb, jump, and explore. This aluminum-structured playset turns a simple patch of grass into an adventure. Sharp peaks and deep valleys create rugged terrain, wrapped in swirling colors of green, gray, blue, and red—just like layers of rock in the earth.

Each peak varies in height, creating a sense of adventure and movement. Kids can climb, weave through gaps, or hide among the structures. The irregular placement of the cones keeps the space dynamic, encouraging different ways to interact. Beneath it all, a soft artificial turf makes sure every landing is a safe one.

all images courtesy of Suzuko Yamada Architects

marble mountain is a colorful climbable structure

Cities often hide the ground beneath layers of concrete and asphalt. Through Marble Mountain, the Japanese Suzuko Yamada Architects does the opposite. It brings the idea of raw, exposed earth into the urban environment. Kids scramble over its jagged surfaces, their movements blending into the marbled patterns. The reflections of movement in the marbled patterns create a playground that feels like it’s constantly shifting—solid yet always in motion.

Structurally, the playset is composed of aluminum panels, its undulating form is strong but lightweight. At just 41.7 square meters, the installation embodies the dynamic relationship between stability and movement. The textured peaks and valleys of the structure invite children to navigate their own paths through its sculpted crests.

Marble Mountain by Suzuko Yamada Architects rises like a mini landscape for kids

this aluminum-structured playset turns a simple patch of grass into an adventure

peaks and deep valleys create rugged terrain

wrapped in swirling colors of green, gray, blue, and red

the swirling colors represent layers of rock in the earth

creating a sense of adventure and movement

each peak varies in height

kids can climb, weave through gaps, or hide among the structures

encouraging different ways to interact

project info:

name: Marble Mountain

architect: Suzuko Yamada Architects | @yamadasuzuko

location: Tokyo, Japan

area: 41.7 square meters

project team: Suzuko Yamada, Kokoro Suzuki
client: GOLDWIN

builder: JAKUETS

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A nine-story building built on a narrow site of 84 square meters, Kooo Architects’ Hotel Rakuragu takes constraints in a positive light and sublimates them into design. Located in Tokyo’s central district, the hotel focuses on the ‘gaps’ within the urban fabric to maximize natural ventilation, light, and diverse urban views within the dense cityscape through a rhythmic geometric facade punctuated by cut-out terraces.

These irregular voids in the white cuboid lend each room a balcony with a unique view, with integrated passive design principles to balance openness with thermal comfort. This decision mitigates summer heat and improves winter heating efficiency — a critical consideration during the Covid-19 pandemic design phase.

all images courtesy of Kooo Architects

the geometric volume is defined by cut-out terraces

Surrounded by mixed-use buildings of varying heights, materials, and styles, the site lacked scenic vistas or uniformity in its urban context. While typical Tokyo hotels omit balconies to maximize interior room space, Kooo Architects took a different approach, observing the surrounding buildings and orienting each floor’s openings toward urban gaps, creating balconies in varying directions. Wrapping around Hotel Rakuragu, some balconies are triangular, while others span the entire bay. To achieve this, the Japanese studio used a steel frame structure with diagonal braces instead of the traditional column-and-beam system. This approach enabled to the columns to be arranged more flexibly and minimized visual obstructions.

Stepping inside, the guest rooms prioritize comfort with curved walls and diatomaceous earth wallpaper, which diffuse soft, natural light while enhancing psychological well-being. Bathrooms are positioned away from openings for privacy, a crucial factor in the densely built Chuo Ward area. The washbasins, meanwhile, are relocated outside the bathrooms, reducing spatial confinement while maintaining functionality

Kooo Architects’ Hotel Rakuragu takes constraints in a positive light and sublimates them into design

a rhythmic geometric facade punctuated by cut-out terraces

located in Tokyo’s central district

art installation by WE+

soft, natural light is diffused to enhance psychological well-being

seamless spaces with curved walls and diatomaceous earth wallpaper

some balconies are triangular, while others span the entire bay

these irregular voids in the white cuboid facade lend each room a balcony with a unique view

project info:

name: Hotel Rakuragu
architect: Kooo Architects | @koooarchitects

location: Tokyo, Japan

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edited by: ravail khan | designboom

The post kooo architects carves luminous terraces into hotel facade on narrow, downtown tokyo lot appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.