#Tokyo

SOCHA is a uniquely designed Japanese café themed around traditional Japanese tea and matcha. The concept phase began in 2022, solidified in 2023, and culminated with the café’s official opening in January 2024. The SOCHA project not only serves as a café but also as a showcase of Sobokuya’s design philosophy, offering an immersive experience in both culinary and architectural aspects of Japanese culture. Caption The building housing SOCHA is a renovation project, transforming a space that once served as a newspaper delivery office and a home into a vibrant café on the ground floor and Sobokuya’s Tokyo design office on the second floor. The renovation involved a complete overhaul of both t... More

House of Quartz is an architecture imagined as a crystallization of all living energies. It shines, reflects, and magnifies everyday phenomena to channel and amplify their vibrant frequencies. It is solid and porous and acts as a skeletal base for all forms of life. The spaces are conceived as anti-gravitational to be free of modern typologies. The building is a low-tech architecture and a mixed-use building with different unit configurations, but essentially does not distinguish between life/work/play. The windows rotate 360 degrees, conceived as a lens to view the surroundings and to reflect and observe our inner being. Koichi Torimura Prosaic building typology and zoning could disembody the essence of our daily life in the city. Du... More

We designed a residence that doubles as a workspace in a 50-year-old apartment building on a high ground in the heart of the city. The building stands on a hillside in the shape of a mortar facing a nearby river. Because of the change in zoning across the road, there are no tall buildings in front of the apartment, and the balcony offers a wide view of the city stretching out to the horizon, merging with the sky.  Masanori Kaneshita Masanori Kaneshita Masanori Kaneshita The U-shaped floor has windows on three sides, allowing daylight to flow in and air to circulate throughout the day, as well as enabling the residents to feel close to the outdoors environment even inside. The topography and the long history of human pr... More

Nestled on the seventh floor of a 1970s building in Takaido, Tokyo, an ordinary 3LDK apartment underwent a renovation designed by Roovice while guided by the creative vision of the owners, David Buchler and Koichi Tanabe.  Akira Nakamura Akira Nakamura Akira Nakamura Upon our first contact, David and Koichi had already started their renovation journey while living in the apartment, driven by a clear vision of their dream home. With three balconies and abundant natural light, they envisioned an open, airy environment that maximized the apartment's potential. Their love for the color blue set the tone for the design, with a striking blue PVC tiles flooring leading the way from the entrance into the kitchen and dining area... More

A renovation project for a new resident. We renovated a 19-year-old private house due to the change of the resident. The new resident's family consists of a grandmother, father, mother, and 3 children (2 brothers and a small sister). The purpose of this project was creating a space where they can feel a sense of unity between two households even if the living floors are different. Forward Stroke Inc. Forward Stroke Inc. Forward Stroke Inc. In Japan, about two-family homes, there are many cases where the living space is completely separated, such as having two entrances. But in this project, a home originally designed for one household would be renovated into a two-family home. Therefore, it was necessary to study what was ne... More

The reconstruction plan for the Yanmar Tokyo office on the east side of Tokyo Station, one of Japan’s most iconic train terminals. Yaesu, the business district to the east of the station, was a center for logistics by canal in the Edo era. Today, it has become a popular district with some of the best development potential in the country, with several major redevelopment projects taking root. The building bridges Tokyo Station and the Yaesu area and acts as a branding hub for Yanmar, a company that develops technology for “food production” and “energy conversion” worldwide. Its exterior and interior environment is designed to make it a suitable face for the company in this station-front location. Kawasumi・Kob... More

From former MOAT to FORT, and a new town center This project site lies on the former outer moat of Edo Castle where the shogun lived. The bent section of the moat became the foundation of the current irregularly shaped city block, which was problematic in some respects, with its unusually configured intersection and lack of pedestrian space and greenery. Replacement of the district road and reorganization of the city block allowed for the creation of green plazas and comfortable walking spaces, and transformed the area into a high-rise complex of offices, SOHO, and shops.  TechniStaff (Kouji Okamoto) The fact that the moat used to serve as the boundary between the daimyo (feudal lord)’s mansion and the residences of mercha... More

We were approached by this shipping company as they had seen our work and wanted something different for their offices as well. During our first meeting we talked about the influence of Covid and how it would require a new work style. We talked about that the office expresses what a company stands for, that an office provides a sense of belonging to their employees which goes beyond the purely functional needs. As they had operated for over a year working mainly from home, they decided to reduce the size of their office space. They would move to a much smaller space, located at in a corner of the very large Mori Toranomon Hills Tower, with excellent views over Tokyo. Their brief asked for a Futuristic Office Space, that reflected their Norw... More

In 2021 the Pritzker price, arguably the most important architecture award, was presented to French architects Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal. The approach of these architects has been, rather than build new to restore and renovate, the give buildings a second chance, to adapt these buildings to a new life, a new usage. Caption For our Runtrip project we have, on a very modest scale, attempted to give a 35 year old building a new life as well. Rather than removing everything inside and starting afresh, we decide to emphasise the life that had happened inside the house. We wanted to show not just what was newly added, but also what was there, which we left. Caption The building, located in the central shopping area of Shib... More