Retail giant Muji and its minimalist design-for-living ethos have long been a Wallpaper* favourite, so we’re very jealous of the 152 design-conscious homebuyers moving into the world’s first Muji Village – a nine-story, three-building complex installed with oodles of Muji furniture, a library and two landscaped gardens, currently being constructed in Tsudanuma, Chiba, a half hour east of Tokyo.
See more of the Muji village and the Style House
While its first occupants will only arrive in February 2010, other Muji fans are holding out for the firm’s next project, the appropriately named Style House. Sited in Tokyo’s snazzy Meguro district, the three-storey, 19-apartment Style House is being overseen by architect Taro Ashihara, and scheduled to complete in February 2011.
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Beloved British screenwriter Dennis Potter inspires an exhibition with a difference at Studio VoltaireHilary Lloyd's multi-faceted exhibition at Studio Voltaire considers Dennis Potter's life and work, from much-loved TV classics to power inequalities
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Insert here: London Design Festival gets intimate with insertable designAt London Design Festival, Heirloom Studio showcases 36 objects – some life-saving, some pleasure-giving, all made to go inside the body
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Postcard from Helsinki Design Week 2025Helsinki Design Week turns 20 this year. Celebrating two decades of design, core themes of this year revolve around happiness and optimism: here are design critic Hugo Macdonald's ten highlights
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Japanese designer Shinichiro Ogata's latest venture is a modern riff on the traditions of his home countryAs he launches Saboe, a series of new tearooms and shops across Japan, we delve into Shinichiro Ogata's creative vision, mirrored throughout the spaces and objects, rituals and moments of his projects
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‘Welcome to my room!’ Ramdane Touhami opens the doors to his new concept store in TokyoWords, Sounds, Colors and Shapes has a first outpost in Japan, following the opening of the creative director’s Paris flagship store last year
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2025 Loewe Foundation Craft Prize winner announced as Kunimasa AokiThe Japanese sculptor describes his work as ‘50 per cent tradition and 50 per cent innovation’
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Tokyo design studio We+ transforms microalgae into coloursCould microalgae be the sustainable pigment of the future? A Japanese research project investigates
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Inside the world of Tapio Wirkkala, the designer who created masterpieces in remotest LaplandThe Finnish artist set up shop in an Arctic outpost without electricity or running water; the work that he created there is now on display at a retrospective in Japan
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Naoto Fukasawa sparks children’s imaginations with play sculpturesThe Japanese designer creates an intuitive series of bold play sculptures, designed to spark children’s desire to play without thinking
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Time, beauty, history – all are written into trees in Karimoku Research Center's debut Tokyo exhibitionThe layered world of forests – and their evolving relationship with humans – is excavated and reimagined in 'The Age of Wood', a Tokyo exhibition at Karimoku Research Center
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Minimal curves and skilled lines are the focal point of Kengo Kuma's Christmas treesKengo Kuma unveiled his two Christmas trees, each carefully designed to harmonise with their settings in two hotels he also designed: The Tokyo Edition, Toranomon and The Tokyo Edition, Ginza
