This Tokyo home for a young family occupies a privileged corner plot within a serene residential neighbourhood in the heart of Tokyo. Its architects, locally based Japanese architecture studio Apollo, founded by Satoshi Kurosaki, aimed for the design – titled Le49Ⅱ – to provide both a luxurious dwelling and a generous and functional home working base for its owners.
Le49Ⅱ by Apollo: a contemporary Tokyo home
The project offers little clue of its multitasking goings on from the street, hidden behind its minimalist architecture and geometric façade made of charcoal grey Galvalume steel walls, grey natural-granite retaining walls, and resin wood louvres. A large opening on the top floor, alongside its terrace, offers a hint of the life inside the home's walls.
The workspaces are tucked away on the lower ground floor. The ground level contains the entrance, as well as the bedrooms and bathrooms. Meanwhile, the upper floor's piano nobile is reserved for the home's expansive living spaces, dramatically placed under an exposed pitched roof and tall ceilings (although the kitchen and dining area feature a lower internal height to create a cosier feeling and a welcome sense of compression).
'Le49 II provides an ideal space for allowing each family member to express their individuality while fostering a sense of family unity. The home gives true expression to the concept of compact luxury,' the architects write.
Apollo's award-winning portfolio includes a wealth of residences, such as Timeless, also in Tokyo, as well as Grigio, which was nominated for the Wallpaper* Design Award's Best Private House in 2015.
-
A carbon-emission-busting house, yeast-biomass building, and more ‘Designs for a Cooler Planet’‘Designs for a Cooler Planet’ returns to Aalto University in Finland as part of the annual Helsinki design and architecture week, highlighting buildings, materials and solutions towards a better future
-
You can safely sit on Max Lamb’s ceramic chairs for 1882 LtdA new collaboration pushes the boundaries of design and ceramic manufacturing: ‘Crockery’ is on view at Gallery Fumi until 30 September 2025
-
Material Matters: Grant Gibson reflects on his popular design fair, about to open at LDF 2025As Material Matters returns to London Design Festival from 17-21 September, we catch up with founder Grant Gibson to learn more about crucial material conversations in contemporary design
-
A new Tadao Ando monograph unveils the creative process guiding the architect's practiceNew monograph ‘Tadao Ando. Sketches, Drawings, and Architecture’ by Taschen charts decades of creative work by the Japanese modernist master
-
A Tokyo home’s mysterious, brutalist façade hides a secret urban retreatDesigned by Apollo Architects, Tokyo home Stealth House evokes the feeling of a secluded resort, packaged up neatly into a private residence
-
Landscape architect Taichi Saito: ‘I hope to create gentle landscapes that allow people’s hearts to feel at ease’We meet Taichi Saito and his 'gentle' landscapes, as the Japanese designer discusses his desire for a 'deep and meaningful' connection between humans and the natural world
-
Campaigners propose reuse to save Kenzo Tange’s modernist ‘Ship Gymnasium’ in JapanThe Pritzker Prize-winning architect’s former Kagawa Prefectural Gymnasium is at risk of demolition; we caught up with the campaigners who hope to save it
-
A new photo book explores the symbolic beauty of the Japanese garden‘Modern Japanese Gardens’ from Thames & Hudson traces the 20th-century evolution of these serene spaces, where every element has a purpose
-
The Architecture Edit: Wallpaper’s favourite July housesFrom geometric Japanese cottages to restored modernist masterpieces, these are the best residential projects to have crossed the architecture desk this month
-
How an icon of Japanese Metabolist architecture took on a life of its own – even after its destructionWhen Kishō Kurokawa designed the modular Nakagin Capsule Tower more than 50 years ago, he imagined it boarding ships and travelling the world. Now it has, thanks to a new show at MoMA
-
Mayumi Miyawaki’s Fukumura Cottage puts this lesser-known Japanese modernist in the spotlightDiscover the little-known modernist architect through this private home in Japan’s Tochigi prefecture countryside
