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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C+A – Coelacanth and Associates renovates KUBO-BLDG, a small four-story tenant building in downtown Nagoya, Japan. The architects’ team gives the building a new identity, more than fifty years after it was first built, with a seismic upgrade using asymmetric oval-shaped structural elements and a new concrete column-beam frame. The project transforms the aging structure into something that is at once safer, more expressive, and in tune with its urban context.

Instead of hiding the building’s new structural components, C+A chooses to highlight them by embedding oval-shaped seismic elements on the facade. These large, asymmetrical ‘icons’ visibly wrap around a triangular bracing system and frame, reinforcing the building while helping it stand out in the dense, often chaotic streetscape. The ovals are carefully arranged to strengthen the structure while still allowing generous openings throughout the facade.

all images by ToLoLo studio

Asymmetric Oval-Shaped Elements define KUBO-BLDG facade

Japanese architecture firm C+A – Coelacanth and Associates reimagines the facade of KUBO-BLDG with function in mind. The new structure creates space for balconies on each floor, semi-outdoor zones that encourage natural ventilation, and support airflow throughout the building. These additions speak directly to lessons learned from the pandemic, offering better air quality and a stronger connection to the outside. The balconies also animate the street, adding a more social and open layer to the building’s edge.

Inside, the renovation refreshes the common areas and upgrades outdated systems, while in the tenant spaces, the architects keep things intentionally raw. They preserve as much of the existing structure as possible, exposing utility lines and simplifying the layout so that future tenants can shape their spaces as needed. 

With a total floor area of just over 350 square meters, C+A’s retrofit shows how seismic safety can also drive creativity, turning technical requirements into forms of expression.

C+A – Coelacanth and Associates renovates KUBO-BLDG

C+A choose to highlight the structural elements of the building

these large, asymmetrical ‘icons’ visibly wrap around a triangular bracing system

reinforcing the building while helping it stand out

C+A – Coelacanth and Associates reimagines the facade of KUBO-BLDG with function in mind

these additions speak directly to lessons learned from the pandemic

C+A’s retrofit shows how seismic safety can also drive creativity

the renovation refreshes the common areas and upgrades outdated systems

they preserve as much of the existing structure as possible

exposing utility lines and simplifying the layout

the architects’ team gives the 50-year-old building a new identity

the upgrade inncludes asymmetric oval-shaped elements and a new concrete column-beam frame

project info:

name: KUBO-BLDG

architect: C+A – Coelacanth and Associates | @coelacanth_and_associates

location: Nagoya City, Aichi Prefecture, Japan

site area: 108.66 square meters

building area: 98.82 square meters

total floor area: 353.17 square meters

project team: Susumu Uno, Yasuharu Rachi

photographer: ToLoLo studio | @tololostudio

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Sou Fujimoto completes EARTH, a circular, green-roofed villa that seems to sink into the landscape of Okinawa’s remote Ishigaki Island, Japan, for NOT A HOTEL (find designboom’s previous coverage here). Now open and fully booked before construction even ended, the project, announced in 2022, is the largest yet in the hospitality brand’s network. Conceived as an extension of the earth, the 1,500-square-meter retreat is nestled into a 10,000-square-meter coastal site. Its curved white form is barely visible from above, disappearing under a living roof that blends with the surrounding terrain.

Fujimoto, who recently served as Site Design Producer for Expo 2025 Osaka-Kansai, designs EARTH with a focus on continuity between inside and out, architecture and landscape, sea and sky. The villa’s bowl-shaped structure draws visitors inward, while still opening outward to the ocean horizon. At the heart of the plan lies a courtyard garden by landscape designer Taichi Saito, featuring an oasis-like water basin and a children’s pool. From the firepit to the roof garden, and the way the sauna captures refracted sunlight from the pool above, guests move between elements of nature and shelter with ease.

images courtesy of NOT A HOTEL

‘earth’ accommodates up to ten occupants in its four bedrooms

The architecture of EARTH centers around a shared living-dining space that looks out directly onto an infinity pool blending into the ocean beyond. Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto designed this front-row view for watching sunsets, listening to waves, or enjoying a dinner prepared by a private chef. Adjacent to the open-plan space is a series of four bedrooms that sleep up to ten guests, each framed by full-height, bezel-less glazing. One room opens directly to a view of the sea, with a shallow water basin flowing between room and horizon.

Underneath, the first floor features a sauna where natural light filters through the water above to create a cavern-like atmosphere, mimicking the experience of being underwater. Guests can step directly from the sauna into an outdoor bath or continue into a fully equipped gym with a punching bag, Smith machine, and cardio equipment. The bathroom continues the horizontal design language of the villa, where the low-profile tub appears to merge into the seascape, following the villa’s architectural motif of vanishing edges.

Sou Fujimoto completes EARTH, a circular, green-roofed villa that seems to sink into the landscape

a private villa surrounded by nature

Originally announced in August 2022, NOT A HOTEL ISHIGAKI ‘EARTH’ was fully sold out via fractional ownership during the construction phase. 

While the villa itself feels like an escape from the world, guests are also encouraged to explore Ishigaki’s natural and cultural offerings. Activities include a traditional ‘sabani’ sailing cruise at sunset, private dinners accompanied by live sanshin music, and even custom brewing experiences of Awamori, Okinawa’s native spirit, made using copper pot distillation methods at the nearby Ikehara Brewery. For food lovers, the villa also offers a range of curated dining experiences centered around local ingredients, from premium BBQ to family-style Okinawan home cooking, always emphasizing minimal processing and deep connection to place. Located just 11 minutes from New Ishigaki Airport, EARTH situates high-end architecture within reach of nature. 

the 1,500-square-meter retreat is nestled into a 10,000-square-meter coastal site

the villa’s bowl-shaped structure draws visitors inward

a series of four bedrooms sleep up to ten guests

a sauna where natural light filters through the water above

EARTH’s architecture focuses on continuity between inside and out

guests move between elements of nature and shelter with ease

the gym is fully equipped with a punching bag, Smith machine, and cardio gear

project info:

name: NOT A HOTEL ISHIGAKI ‘EARTH’ | @notahotel_official

architect: Sou Fujimoto Architects | @sou_fujimoto

location: Miyara 120-92, Ishigaki City, Okinawa Prefecture, Japan

site area: 9,586 square meters

total built area: 1,489.13 square meters (including indoor space, terrace, pool, and water basin)

indoor area: 975.01 square meters

courtyard area: 2,066.07 square meters

construction: Maeda Toyo Construction Joint Venture

client / owner: NOT A HOTEL Co., Ltd.

operator: NOT A HOTEL MANAGEMENT Co., Ltd.

The post sou fujimoto’s circular green-roofed villa for NOT A HOTEL opens on ishigaki island, japan appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.

Located near the river in Nakanoshima, Osaka, Heys Café is a newly constructed coffee shop designed by BREND. The project responds to the brand’s concept of ‘no barriers’ by creating a space where varying materials and functions coexist within a compact footprint of approximately 33 sqm (10 tsubo).

To balance seating capacity with a sense of openness, BREND introduced a built-in volume that serves as outdoor bench seating. The café’s street-facing facade incorporates operable steel sashes, allowing for flexible enclosure and ventilation while encouraging interaction between interior and exterior spaces. The overall facade concept intentionally softens the boundary between indoors and outdoors, promoting fluid movement of air and light throughout the space.

all images courtesy of BREND

Material Continuity and Flexible Spatial Use define BREND’s design

Considering materiality, BREND’s design team utilizes Mino ware tiles for both the bench and table finishes, a material characterized by uneven color variation, adding visual texture and continuity. The surrounding walls feature a plaster finish in a color range closely matched to the tiles, creating a cohesive material palette while highlighting subtle differences between surface treatments.

The café’s furniture is designed with flexibility in mind. Stackable elements allow the interior layout to adapt easily for alternative uses outside of regular business hours, supporting a variety of spatial configurations.

designed by BREND, the café reflects the brand’s concept of ‘no barriers’

outdoor bench seating is integrated into the building’s volume

the design encourages fluid interaction between interior and exterior spaces

material selection emphasizes both texture and durability

the design maximizes usability while maintaining simplicity

different surface materials are unified through a shared color palette

Mino ware tiles cover both benches and tables for material continuity

a pastel color palette unifies the interior

stackable furniture allows the interior to be easily reconfigured

walls feature a plaster finish in a tone that complements the tiles

operable steel sashes along the street-facing facade allow for flexible ventilation

project info:

name: heys
architect: BREND

lead designer: Joe Yoshimura | @joe.yoshimura

location: Osaka, Japan

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: christina vergopoulou | designboom

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A sweeping timber ring — the largest of its kind in the world — encircles the Expo 2025 Osaka site on Yumeshima Island, Japan, anchoring the world fair. Conceived by Sou Fujimoto, the Grand Ring serves as the Expo’s circulatory core and forms a new landmark on the island, connecting national pavilions, performance venues, and public spaces beneath an expansive wooden canopy that doubles as a skywalk. A new series of photographs by William Mulvihill captures the complete structure in striking detail, highlighting its scale, construction, lightness, atmosphere, and material elegance. Following the photographer’s visual journey capturing the Expo’s national pavilions, this new series documents the monumental structure’s vast footprint while highlighting the intricacy of its lattice of timber beams.

all images by William Mulvihill

sou fujimoto’s monumental timber ring anchors the expo

Spanning over 60,000 square meters and stretching 2 kilometers in circumference, the Grand Ring is now the largest timber structure in the world. It rises between 12 and 22 meters in height and is made from a combination of local Japanese sugi cedar, hinoki cypress, and Scots pine glulam, joined using traditional Japanese nuki joinery techniques. Built in collaboration with Tohata Architects & Engineers and Azusa Sekkei, the project exemplifies expressions of heritage craftsmanship merged with contemporary structural engineering, designed to resist earthquakes while maintaining a delicate and open character for its life during the Expo and beyond.

Fujimoto has described the ring as ‘a symbol of our times,’ shaping it as a circular space that promotes collective experience alongside ecological sensitivity. The structure shelters visitors from sun and rain below, while a continuous elevated deck above provides panoramic views of the Expo site and Osaka Bay.

William Mulvihill captures the pavilions of Expo 2025 Osaka

Sou Fujimoto’s Grand Ring becomes the protagonist of the series

the structure serves as the Expo’s circulatory core and forms a new landmark on the island

highlighting scale, construction, lightness, atmosphere, and material elegance

the Grand Ring is now the largest timber structure in the world

joined using traditional Japanese nuki joinery techniques

Fujimoto has described the ring as ‘a symbol of our times’

the project exemplifies expressions of heritage craftsmanship merged with contemporary structural engineering

atop it’s an expansive wooden canopy that doubles as a skywalk

the continuous elevated deck above provides panoramic views of the Expo site

designed to resist earthquakes

a circular space that promotes collective experience alongside ecological sensitivity

the series documents the monumental structure’s vast footprint

project info:

name: Grand Ring

architect: Sou Fujimoto | @sou_fujimoto

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Amid the wooded hills of Sagamihara City in Kanagawa, Japan, DAICHI inserts Tree Sauna, a structure designed to be both a sauna and a sleeping shelter. This small 100-square-meter building seems to grow from the surrounding forest, and, unlike most architecture, conforms to its natural context, asking for permission rather than staking a claim.

The architecture emerges from what DAICHI principal Makoto Tanijiri calls the ‘in-between’. ‘Between the city and nature, between people and objects, between inside and outside, or between function and feeling,’ he notes. ‘I have come to see these spaces not as mere gaps or neutral zones, but as creative frontiers—places where sensitivity and imagination can take root.’

Built without disturbing existing trees, the structure is composed in harmony with the forest, allowing it to warp, lean, or even break in response to the terrain, embracing distortion as a reflection of nature’s rhythms. ‘This distortion is not a designer’s manipulation but the result of a dialogue with nature,’ Tanijiri shares. ‘It breathes in ways that overly polished spaces never could.’

all images courtesy of DAICHI

Tree Sauna is designed for trees, wind, and people

Creative development company DAICHI intentionally introduces inconvenience as an architectural principle with this project, free of fixed programs and engineered efficiencies. Tree Sauna’s safety isn’t guaranteed, its purpose is unclear, and how people use it is left open. ‘There is a concept known as ”benefits of inconvenience” — the idea that, in seeking convenience, we’ve lost certain instincts: to feel, to imagine, to move with our hands,’ Tanijiri explains. ‘By revisiting inconvenience, we reclaim those primal abilities.’

Set on a forested site with a footprint of just 99 square meters, Tree Sauna is entirely designed in-house by DAICHI, covering everything from architecture to structure and mechanical systems. Its compact form is a way to prompt larger questions about space, use, and presence. The structure is shaped to allow in elements like time, sound, humidity, and uncertainty, drawing people into the forest. ‘What is architecture, really?’ the architect asks. ‘Is it something built only for humans? Or should it be something shared with the trees, the wind, and the birds?’ 

this small 100-square-meter building seems to grow from the surrounding forest

the architecture emerges from what DAICHI principal Makoto Tanijiri calls the ‘in-between’

built without disturbing existing trees

the Tree Sauna warps, leans, and even breaks in response to the terrain

the design embraces distortion as a reflection of nature’s rhythms

DAICHI intentionally introduces inconvenience as an architectural principle

free of fixed programs and engineered efficiencies

Tree Sauna is entirely designed in-house by DAICHI

the structure is shaped to allow in elements like time, sound, humidity, and uncertainty

the Tree Sauna is set amid the wooded hills of Sagamihara City in Kanagawa, Japan

project info:

name: Tree Sauna

architect: DAICHI Inc. | @daichi_nature

location: Sagamihara City, Kanagawa, Japan

site area: 426 square meters

building footprint: 99 square meters

total floor area: 100.4 square meters

principal architect: Makoto Tanijiri | @tanijirimakoto

construction: Tonkachi Drills Inc.

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Architect and visual storyteller Yuval Zohar brings more than ten years of travel across Japan to life in his latest book, Towards a Nude Architecture, published by the Dutch imprint nai010. Using a curated mix of photographs, hand-drawn diagrams, collages, and maps, Zohar takes readers on a journey through Japan’s unique bathing culture.

At the heart of the publication are two key traditions: the onsen and the sento. Onsen are natural hot springs, heated by Japan’s abundant geothermal activity, often found in mountainous or rural areas. Sento, on the other hand, are public bathhouses that use heated tap water and became popular in urban neighborhoods, especially during times when most homes didn’t have private baths. While onsen are often seen as destinations for retreat, sento have served as part of daily life as a place to unwind, socialize, and connect with the local community.

As communal bathing becomes less common in modern urban life, many of these traditional places are disappearing or being transformed, with Zohar’s book reflecting on this change. 

Onsen Materiality | Wood | images courtesy of Yuval Zohar and nai010

Towards a Nude Architecture reflects on collective care design

Japan’s approximately 30,000 natural hot springs spill across one of the most geothermally active regions on Earth, touching everything from Shinto purification rites to feudal health cures and contemporary wellness tourism. Towards a Nude Architecture, however, resists the pull of nostalgia and instead offers a layered exploration of how onsen architecture has evolved in response to shifting cultural, environmental, and technological forces. Organized into three chapters – past, present, and future – Yuval Zohar’s book traces the transformation of bathing culture, beginning with the tranquil wooden bathhouses of the Edo period, moving through the pragmatic and often austere municipal sento of the 20th century, and culminating in the emergence of contemporary privatized spas that mirror broader societal trends toward urban individualism, commercialized leisure, and reimagined notions of public intimacy.

Tsurunoyu’s cloudy water (nigoriyu) rotenburo

a visual archive of water and loss

Zohar, based in the onsen town of Yugawara, takes readers on an immersive, almost topographical journey, where water and steam become guiding metaphors for transformation and collective intimacy. His visual documentation, both personal and precise, includes baths nestled in mountains, forgotten rural sento slowly reclaimed by vegetation, diagrams showing how volcanic activity shapes site planning, and collages where human bodies dissolve into clouds of vapor.

Even though architecture here serves as a membrane between the social and the elemental, the story Zohar tells is also one of disappearance. As local bathhouses shutter due to aging owners, dwindling visitors, and the rise of mega-facilities or in-home baths, the future of Japanese communal spaces faces an uncertain future. The book becomes a quiet call to action, aiming to protect these fading sanctuaries of the everyday, where the unclothed body exists without hierarchy and where architecture hosts a fragile form of coexistence.

With Towards a Nude Architecture, Yuval Zohar charts the thermal pulse of a culture, and in doing so, reveals how architecture can rescue our most elemental ways of being together.

The Author Yuval Zohar in Kita Onsen’s Tengunoyu

Tsurunoyu Onsen in deep winter

Sento Art Collage, a super collage of twenty-five different characters across centuries of sento depictions

ranging from Japanese woodblocks, to western etchings, manga, anime, and video games

architectural axons of onsen are featured in the book

Oimatsu onsen, also known as Dungeon Onsen, a dilapidated building housing an eerie soak

Kodakaranoyu, Takaragawa Onsen’s largest rotenburo

Dogo Onsen’s regal Tamanoyu

Takaragawa Onsen Site Plan

the emerald green waters of Iojima’s Higashi Onsen

Higashi Onsen Architectural Axons

origins of onsen

Yuval Zohar charts the thermal pulse of a culture

project info:

name: Towards a Nude Architecture

author: Yuval Zohar

publisher: nai010 publishers | @nai010_publishers

pages: 208

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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 Osaka’s newly opened Umekita Park, soft lines ripple across a SANAA-designed pavilion, drawing visitors to the twelfth edition of Prada Mode. This layered story of architecture and transformation brings Kazuyo Sejima’s decades-long vision for Inujima into an urban context. This is not simply a site for viewing architectural models or reflecting on theory. It is a site of convergence, where the past and future of a small island are refracted through the lens of a metropolitan installation.

Before the exhibition opened in Osaka, a smaller group traveled to Inujima itself, an island in the Seto Inland Sea where Sejima has quietly worked for nearly two decades. The Inujima Project, held from June 4th to 6th, offered a direct encounter with the material and social landscape her architecture has helped reshape. Here, a permanent new pavilion designed by Sejima and donated by Prada now stands within the Inujima Life Garden.

Prada Mode Osaka | image courtesy Prada

On Inujima, Architecture as a Way of Living

Kazuyo Sejima’s engagement with the island began in 2008, when the Fukutake Foundation invited the architect to reimagine the built environment as part of the broader Benesse Art Site Naoshima. What emerged was a long-term, evolving effort to fold architecture into the rhythms of local life. Vacant homes became art spaces. Gardens, once neglected, grew again with shared labor. Architectural interventions happened slowly, sometimes invisibly. Rather than fixing a place in time, Sejima’s approach allows it to keep shifting.

The Inujima Project, which ran from June 4th — 6th, previews this philosophy through direct experience. Visitors walked narrow paths between restored buildings, listened to music inside historic structures, and joined conversations curated by Sejima across spaces that blur thresholds between art, architecture, and everyday use. The permanent pavilion at the Life Garden continues that ethic. It is part stage, part shelter, and always open.

Prada Mode Osaka | image courtesy Prada

prada mode osaka: Translating Island to City

Where Inujima immerses, Osaka frames. From June 7th to 15th, the Prada Mode Osaka pavilion opens that island story to broader public view. Designed by SANAA, the pavilion in Umekita Park hosts an exhibition curated by Sejima, with architectural models, videos, and artifacts from the Inujima work. On June 7th, the space was a private club. From June 8th, it welcomed the public.

Workshops and conversations throughout the week extended the themes of the exhibition. These were less about highlighting individual projects than about exploring the intertwined systems — natural, social, historical — that shape how architecture takes root. A café and information center fold into the same curving forms that define the exhibition hall, creating space for rest, listening, and exchange. The park’s proximity to Osaka Station reinforces this openness. In contrast to Inujima’s remoteness, the pavilion becomes a threshold anyone can cross.

Inujima Project | image courtesy Prada

Kazuyo Sejima’s language has never been one of imposition. In Inujima, it is through restraint that her architecture becomes generous. Buildings align with existing paths. Openings invite in sea breezes. Materials respond to age and wear. Her design for the Prada pavilion in Osaka carries forward this same quality: calm, porous, intentional.

The choice to present both the Inujima Project and Prada Mode Osaka in tandem reveals a commitment from Prada to deeper cultural production, less tethered to the immediate and more aligned with architectural continuity. It also renews their collaboration with Sejima, following their earlier work together in a previous edition of Prada Mode. This year’s iteration, shaped by shared values around process and place, adds another layer to an evolving archive of architectural experimentation and care.

Inujima Project | image courtesy Prada

Prada Mode Osaka | image courtesy Prada

Prada Mode Osaka | image courtesy Prada

Prada Mode Osaka | image courtesy Prada

Prada Mode Osaka | image courtesy Prada

project info:

name: Prada Mode Osaka, Inujima Project

brand: Prada | @prada

architect: SANAA | @sanaa_jimusho

location (Inujima Project): Inujima Island, Japan (June 4th — 6th, 2025)

location (Prada Mode Osaka): Umekita Park, Osaka, Japan (June 7th — 15th, 2025)

photography: courtesy Prada

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Nestled in the forested hills of Karuizawa, Japan, The Cone by Kamiya Architects redefines the boundary between structure and nature through an inverted-conical roof that blends into its sloped terrain. Designed as a timeshare villa—straddling the line between a private residence and a boutique hotel—the project sits on a steep 3,000 sqm plot, responding to both topography and forest with fluidity. From above, the building presents as a sweeping arc that responds directly to the site. The gently curving plan mirrors the slope of the land, and the uniform, dark roof surface forms a powerful inverted conical shape, tapering inward toward a central point and culminating in a subtle protruding chimney.

images courtesy of Kamiya Architects

KAMIYA ARCHITECTS BALANCE ENGINEERING WITH ATMOSPHERE

Though legally a wooden structure, The Cone employs steel-reinforced beams to achieve a generous 15-by-12 meter span in the main living area, eliminating the need for bulky wooden columns. Instead, slim iron columns discreetly support the architecture, allowing for panoramic openings that blur the division between interior and landscape. By minimizing structural expression, Kamiya Architects emphasize spatial experience over tectonic display, allowing the architectural presence to feel quietly powerful.

Inside, the inverted cone becomes a luminous volume. The white-painted ceiling acts as a gentle reflector, amplifying daylight and diffusing indirect lighting at night. The result is a soft, ambient glow that enhances the cone’s concave geometry, creating an atmosphere that is both introspective and expansive. The Japanese architects use this reflective ceiling to transform the structure into a sensory landscape, where light and form heighten the emotional resonance of the space.

from above, the building presents as a sweeping arc

A CHOREOGRAPHY OF SPACE AND STONE

A curved central corridor arcs through the building like a hidden spine. Its full extent never immediately visible, the corridor evokes a sense of mystery. Radiating from it are variously scaled rooms that engage with the forest in different ways—sometimes framing, sometimes opening fully to the surrounding trees. At the heart of the communal living area sits a three-ton boulder, found in the nearby mountains and repurposed as a fireplace. This uncut, unshaped stone introduces an element of natural randomness that defies human authorship, grounding the otherwise controlled architecture.

the gently curving plan mirrors the slope of the land

the structure serves both as a private residence and a boutique hotel

the uniform, dark roof surface forms a powerful inverted conical shape

the project sits on a steep 3,000 sqm plot

the design responds to both topography and forest with fluidity

a subtle protruding chimney completes the roof design

the structure opens to panoramic views of the surrounding forest

inside, the inverted cone becomes a luminous volume

the white-painted ceiling acts as a gentle reflector

at the heart of the communal living area sits a three-ton boulder

the boulder serves as a symbolic anchor within the space

project info: 

name: The Cone
architects: Kamiya Architects | @kamiya__architects
location: Karuizawa, Japan

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