Located in downtown Tokyo’s Nakano ward is the Reflection of Mineral House, a small home project occupying a 480 square foot (about 45 square meters) area. The designer is Yasuhiro Yamashita from Atelier Tekuto which has received wide architecture and design media attention and numerous international awards upon his work.
The whimsy of this beautiful residence is a big part of its charm. At the same time, the house is also an elegant expression of modern Japanese minimalism, and an example of brilliant use of a sparse site, a requirement in the tight space of downtown Tokyo. The interior appointments — the lines of the bathtub, the curves of the waste bins, the wavy length of the utilitarian shelves — respond to the lines of the building. This makes the interior seem larger and much less boxy than one would assume from the outside.
