BnA Studio Akihabara — Tokyo, Japan
A sweeping dragon mural, interior metal scaffolding and skateboards transformed into tables may not sound like typical hotel décor – unless you happen to have crossed the threshold of BnA Studio Akihabara, a new artist-designed hotel located on a quiet lane in eastern Tokyo.
Housed in a neat grey corner building, the property has a ground floor co-working space, along with five ‘concept art' guestrooms that have each been created by a Japanese artist. There is sunlight-flooded Athletic Park by Studiobowl’s interior artist Ryohei Murakami – with its rainbow pops of colour, metal scaffolding and a yellow staircase leading to a hovering bed platform.
Upstairs is Responder by 81 Bastards (whose members include six painters, a tattoo artist, a photographer, a videographer and a DJ), with a hyper-detailed mural fluidly spanning walls and ceiling. While just next door, the black-walled Hailer, by the same collective, showcases a subtly subversive modern take on traditional Japanese décor.
The Zen Garden suite – by 51.3 G-Wave – is on the top floor, complete with a violet fluoro light depicting the Japanese kanji symbol for ‘zen’, a metal fence cutting the space in two and a small Japanese rock garden. The rooms may be experimental showcases of contemporary art but they are rooted in comfort: each has its own spacious bathroom, a small kitchen and a washer-dryer machine.
This property is the latest – and the biggest – in a string of projects masterminded by BnA (short for bed and art) since it launched in 2015 with the opening of a popular Air BnB ‘art room’ in Tokyo’s Ikebukuro district.
Since then, the group has unveiled a machiya art house in Kyoto and the two-room BnA Hotel Koenji in Tokyo. Meanwhile, plans are underway for larger-scale hotels in both cities.
ADDRESS
6-3-3 Sotokanda
Chiyoda-ku
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Danielle Demetriou is a British writer and editor who moved from London to Japan in 2007. She writes about design, architecture and culture (for newspapers, magazines and books) and lives in an old machiya townhouse in Kyoto.
Instagram - @danielleinjapan
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