All posts in: Tokyo

21 Aug 2020

Tokyo’s Transparent Public Toilets

In normal times, I’m often reluctant to use any type of public toilet. During the pandemic, we won’t even go near one; there has to be another option. Leave it to Tokyo to design one that you’d actually want to use though! Architect and Pritzker Prize Winner, [Shigeru Ban,] has designed a pair of public toilets for the Tokyo Toilet project. From the outside, the glass walls look transparent if not in use. However, when occupied, the walls become opaque. An individual entering the stall and locking the door automatically transforms the glass windows to lose its transparency. It’s simple execution when you think about it, but is practical design.

[Source]

26 Jun 2017

Tokyo Gifathon

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/223080635]

Very recently, I posted about James Curran’s Los Angeles Gifathon. I’m happy to share that he’s got one for Tokyo too! Every time I see one of his GIF tweets appear in my feed, they make me so happy. The loop is never all that long, but I find myself getting sucked in longer than usual. When James was in Tokyo, he constructed a different GIF for each of his 30 days. Enjoy! Make sure your sound is on for the full effect!

06 Jan 2017

Hello Kitty’s Latest Squad Member

Meet Aggretsuko! She doesn’t really look like this and I promise she’s got a cute exterior, but based off the intro video I just saw of her, she also has a dark side. Her tagline? She’s over it. Geez, can we adopt that too? Apparently Aggretsuko is just like all of her friends and Hello Kitty, but inside she’s got some rage. Notice how her name kind of just looks like another version of… “Aggressive?” or “Aggravate?” Aggretsuko is a red panda working as an office associate at a trading company (a working girl! We like this!) and she’s clearly packing a punch.

Watch her intro video here. I laughed the whole way through it.

23 Aug 2016

Airbnb’s New Tokyo Office

Tech company, Airbnb, has opened up a new office in Tokyo and as you can already imagine, it’s stunning. Personally, I’ve never had a chance to visit their office in San Francisco, but have always heard that it is one of the best offices out of all the startup and tech companies in Silicon Valley and San Francisco so it’s no surprise that Tokyo wouldn’t follow suit.

The great thing about moving offices is that there are so many interior design ideas that you can incorporate to not only make your space visually pleasing to look at, but also efficient enough for productivity levels too. This is something that has become so important for offices in this day and age. While moving an office could open up new opportunities for designing, you may have to be extremely mindful of the process of office supply and equipment shifting. Whether it is a fresh look or a renovation over an already existing design. teams with experience in commercial office fitout should be able to offer the requisite service. However, extra attention may need to be paid to handling and shifting office equipment. That generally tends to be an area where undue expenses are incurred. Additionally, you can have a checklist of the whole approach with you that can help in streamlining the whole moving progression. You can also download checklist for the office relocation process on the internet that can come in handy. Coming back to interiors, no one wants to work in an office that is dull and boring because this won’t do anything for employee morale and so forth. So, these are both points that you need to take into consideration when thinking about office design.

For example, sites like https://www.3-form.com/materials/sola-felt have a wide array of sound-absorbing panels that come in a variety of colours to help soundproof and to decrease the overall noise of your office. They are great to look at and they will benefit your work-levels too, which is all the more important. As the Airbnb offices have always looked nice, it is very likely that they have incorporated something like this too to help make a difference to their new and existing offices, especially the one that has just opened in Tokyo.

At nearly 2,000 square feet, this office was designed to blend both “local and global cultures” which you can see throughout these photos.

Per employee feedback, the theme of nature is heavily incorporated throughout the new design, with the end result serving as a breath of fresh air from the city’s chaotic Shinjuku district outside. Staff members can dine in the light-filled café and reception area, follow wooden paths to the various meeting rooms, and remove their shoes and relax on the tatami mats peppered throughout the office.

[Source]download checklist

07 May 2014

A Stuffed Companion To Dine With

The first thing that came to mind after reading this was “Lars and the Real Girl.” A restaurant in Japan doesn’t want you to feel alone if you’re dining solo so to help you out, they are willing to provide you with a stuffed hippo to join you. Now, I can’t knock a stuffed animal. I love them. This, however, seems a little peculiar to me. I’ve always been one to believe that you should do whatever you want and not worry about what others will think of you, but wait- for a second, what do you think people WILL think of you? The Moomin Cafe in Tokyo is awfully sweet for keeping solo diners in mind, but I think if I were in this situation, I would just opt for a book.

[Source]

09 Sep 2013

2020 Summer Olympic Games To Be Held In Tokyo

It wasn’t too long ago that I wrote a post about the contenders for the 2020 Summer Olympic Games. The decision was between Istanbul, Madrid, and Tokyo and I can’t remember which city I was rooting for at the time, but they had used Rihanna in their bid video and that basically won me over. The winner of the three cities, however, will be Tokyo! This is the second time that Tokyo will be hosting the Summer Olympics with their first time being all the way back in 1964.

In case you missed it, here’s their bid video:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tvPubeNjmI#t=82]

And a rendering of the future stadium:

[Source]

11 Oct 2012

The Future Is Minimalistic

Could our Seattle Starbucks locations look like this in a few years? Who knows?! They already do in Tokyo. The space is so incredibly bare that it seems completely unrecognizable as the coffee company. The shop was designed by Nendo and even though it is not aligned with typical stores, it is still very pretty looking.

[Source]

15 Jun 2011

Photo Series

Photo Essay: Children of the Russian Elite

Anna Skladmann, Vova Standing in His Grandfather’s Theatre from the series Little Adults, Moscow, 2010

I just noticed in my 20 tabs open I have about six tabs of photo series. Instead of making a new post about each individual collection, I figured I would condense it and be more efficient by sticking them all into one post. This first series by photographer Anna Skladmann is a photo essay called “Children of the Russian Elite.” I love how Skladmann photographs the children in a way that shows us how different their childhood is from the average kid. There aren’t any sandboxes or dirt on their faces. Despite their young faces, you can easily tell that these children are more mature than their actual age and that’s something that I find so interesting about this essay. [Source]

Potholes

Diver on Avenue Musset, Montreal. © Claudia Ficca, Davide Luciano

I am incredibly amused by the Pothole photo series by husband wife duo Claudia Ficca and Davide Luciano! The two photographers capturing potholes in Los Angeles, Toronto, and New York have managed to turn them into something beautiful and comical at the same time.

Their inspiration: “After a sudden collision with a canyon sized crater of a pothole we decided to channel our frustration into a positive project where the useless pothole would be a source of humor and creativity.” [Source]

Passport and Reality

This project found on Behance Network shows how much people’s looks can change in ten years.

[Source]

Icelandic Volcanoes

I am envious of the lives that photographers, journalists, and buyers lead because traveling automatically comes with the job. Marcel Mucil, a travel photographer, has captured these stunning images of Icelandic volcanoes and I am mesmerized by these gorgeous colors and views. [Source]

There is no denying that the moneymakers and businessmen of Tokyo are hardworking, but making that scrill comes with a price. For the past seven years, photographer Pawel Jaszczuk has been photographing “salarymen” in Tokyo. They are obviously dressed for work, but clearly are not awake for it since they are passing out on sidewalks all over the city. [Source]

02 Mar 2011

Song of the Day

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wVhWcpZpac]

The Books – Tokyo

Thank you Urban Outfitters’ Music Mondays