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Kanae Hasegawa

@kanaeintheair

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Contributing editor @fthtsi from Japan
Design and craft writer
Author ‘Living in a Japanese House’ @phaidonpress
Japonisme researcher

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Book “Living in a Japanese House” @phaidonpress is my partial survey on how Japanese live life into their homes, the care they put into 🍀I would be delighted to hear your voices 🍀
Simple but an ingenious cover design by @apartamentostudios by @kanaeintheair

My book “Living in a Japanese House” will be published worldwide by @phaidonpress in October 2026! And is now available for pre-order🍀

This book uncovers 35 Japanese houses, through the voices of the house owners. Having seen these ingenious houses in other media before, I simply became curious what the life is like living there. Not that I am voyuerisitc….
After all, a house is a theatre on which a houseowner’s daily drama unfolds.
Some of the houses featured might make readers wonder, ‘Can you really live in a place like that?’, but as long as the residents enjoy it, for them, it is a castle.
More than anything, I hope this book invites people to think bold and big when they create their own houses. I would be delighted to hear readers’ thoughts!

My sincere thanks to the publisher @mimiterragni for the trust, my editor Phoebe Stephenson for the encouragement, and the book designer, Apartamento Studios (@apartamentostudios ) for thoughtful design.

For pre-orders please see link in bio.

Featured houses by architects
KEIJI ASHIZAWA DESIGN(@keijiashizawadesign)
HIROSHI NAKAMURA & NAP Architects(@hiroshi_nakamura_naparchitects)
@yuko.nagayama
@tsuyoshi_tane
nendo(@nendo_official)
SUPPOSE DESIGN OFFICE(@supposedesignoffice)
谷尻誠 / Makoto Tanijiri(@tanijirimakoto)
Ai Yoshida 吉田愛(@yoshida_ai_)
@fuji_architect_tokyo_japan
能作淳平(@junpeinousaku)
Suzuko Yamada(@yamadasuzuko)
武田清明(@kiyoakitakeda)
Shimada Yo(@yo_shimada)
@aatismo
Akihisa_Hirata(@architect.akihisa.hirata)
高野洋平(@yoheitakano_maruarchitecture)
Tamada + Wakimoto Architects.(@tamadawakimotoarchitects)
御手洗龍 Ryu Mitarai(@ryu_mitarai)
Fumiko Takahama Architects(@fumiko_takahama_architects)
園田慎二 / Shinji Sonoda(@shinji_sonoda)
@th.architects
YAP.Inc(@yamaguchi_akito)
@officeshogoonodera
#新素材研究所

#Phaidon
#LivinginaJapanesehouse by @kanaeintheair

かなり前ですが、OGATA Paris を取材したThe New York Timesの記事。
日本を押しつけることなく、フランスをお借りして、フランスの環境を借景とするOGATA 。
#ogata
#tmagazine by @kanaeintheair

PHAIDONから出版された書籍「LIVING IN A JAPANESE HOUSE」にStirとHouse in the windows(マドノスミカ)をご紹介いただきました。PHAIDONの建築本というのもとても嬉しいです。

“Stir” and “House in the Windows” have been featured in the book *Living in a Japanese House*, published by Phaidon. I am especially delighted that this is a Phaidon architecture book.
#architecture
#ryumitarai
#japan
#tokyo by @kanaeintheair

For Ramdane Touhami (@ramdanetouhami), curiosity has always been a serious pursuit. An idea can lead to a fashion label, a publishing house, an old letterpress workshop saved from closure, or an entirely new project because, quite simply, he wanted to see what might happen. It is an approach built around freedom and fascination, and one that has allowed the French Moroccan designer and entrepreneur to move between disciplines without losing the sense of discovery that first drew him to them. His measure for deciding what deserves his attention is instinctive: “whether it captivates me and makes me go Wow!” ⁠
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Rome has given that curiosity a new setting. Since moving into Palazzo Borghese in 2025, Touhami has filled its extraordinary rooms with objects accumulated across different moments of his life, many of which had been waiting years to find their place. Yet the apartment is not solely a home for things already made. Touhami continues to design for it too, including the daybed and shelves pictured, which were made in India. His own pieces sit comfortably within a palazzo whose rooms have been evolving since the 16th century, adding another period to a building already full of them. As Touhami says, “The place where you are affects the way you live.” In Rome, that exchange appears to work both ways. ⁠
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Read the full story in Ark Journal Volume XVI.⁠
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Words Kanae Hasegawa (@kanaeintheair)⁠
Photography Marina Denisova (marinadenisova)⁠
Art Direction Sigrid Gry Laursen (@s__g__l) by @kanaeintheair

‘Stunning photos take readers inside these architectural gems. Those drawn to pared-down aesthetics will savor every page.’ –Publishers Weekly (@publisherswkly).

‘Living in a Japanese House’ is an in-depth, illustrated exploration of Japanese homes designed by contemporary architects. This carefully curated survey invites readers inside 35 remarkable Japanese houses ranging from well-known homes.

Providing both architectural inspiration and a window into contemporary Japanese life, Kanae Hasegawa (@kanaeintheair) brings together projects by Hiroshi Nakamura, Ryue Nishizawa, nendo, and other celebrated architects, highlighting the diversity of their work.

Each project is presented with a multi-page portfolio of images and an informative description that reveals how the home’s design fulfils the client’s vision of an ideal living space. Engaging and insightful texts include reflections from both the architects and the homeowners, revealing their thoughts on the design process and their experience of living in these inspiring spaces. Together, the homes featured here demonstrate the power of good design to transform and elevate everyday life.

‘Living in a Japanese House’ is now shipping at the link in bio.

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Image 1: Tree-ness House, Akihisa Hirata Architecture Office, Tokyo, 2017. Picture credit: Vincent Hecht
Image 2: Todoroki House in Valley, Atta –Atelier Tsuyoshi Tane Architects, Setagaya, Tokyo, 2018. Picture credit: Yuna Yagi
Image 3: Daita2019, Suzuko Yamada, Setagaya, Tokyo, 2019. Picture credit: Sasaki Kei
Image 4: Stir, Ryu Mitarai & A. A., Tokyo, 2018. Picture credit: Kai Nakamura
Image 5: T/K House, Shinji Sonoda Architects, Takasaki, Gunma, 2020. Picture credit: Shinya Kigure by @kanaeintheair

My book ‘Living in a Japanese House’ @phaidonpress is coming out🍀 I hope it will come closer to you 💫 by @kanaeintheair

Pinch me🍀 My-maybe biased-insight on Japanese homes is in the @fthtsi sumptuous, substantial New Heritage design issue. Thank you gazillion @jellison22 and @craftacularuk for carving out precious 2 pages for me.
Picture by Ben Richards and Kenta Hasegawa by @kanaeintheair

Close-up images of our priory, now that its renovation is complete. Thank you, @ArkJournal, for featuring it in your new issue, with wonderful photographs @pauline_chardin , styling by @mathiasmentze and words by @kanaeintheair .
#MinimalInteriors #MinimalArchitecture #QuietDesign #HistoricRenovation #mingei by @kanaeintheair

A marble-topped console holds faces from Roman Portraits, the 1940 Phaidon book, while fragments of antiquity appear throughout Ramdane Touhami’s (@ramdanetouhami) home in Palazzo Borghese. It is an interior where one period is continually meeting another, something Touhami finds especially compelling about Rome itself. The city drew him in because its history has never settled into a single era, and inside his apartment he follows much the same instinct, allowing objects with very different lives to exist together without attempting to make them belong to one moment.⁠
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There is also a certain freedom to the way Touhami lives with things. He is uninterested in the social rituals of collecting, choosing instead according to beauty, curiosity and the immediate pleasure of being captivated. Some objects have waited years to find their place, while others may move again, giving the apartment the feeling of a home still being written rather than a finished interior. In Ark Journal Volume XVI, his rooms offer a particularly personal way of thinking about history: something to live amongst, add to and carry forward.⁠
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Read the full feature in Ark Journal Volume XVI.⁠
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Words Kanae Hasegawa (@kanaeintheair)⁠
Photography @_marinadenisova_
Art Direction Sigrid Gry Laursen (@s__g__l) by @kanaeintheair

More beautiful images by @pauline_chardin produced for @arkjournal in our renovated priory located south of France. Thanks @mathiasmentze @kanaeintheair @teruhiroyanagiharastudio @nem_architectes @bakkesetco #frenchcountrystyle #interiordesign #architecture #minimal #mingei by @kanaeintheair

Nicolas Trembley (@nicolastrembley) is accustomed to living with art, yet in his home in the south of France, he found himself taking it away. The art advisor, curator and collector, formerly a curator of video art at the Centre Pompidou, shares a 14th century former priory in Belvézet with his partner, artist Matthew Lutz-Kinoy (@lutz_kinoy_unlocked). Their renovation took almost two years, with the pair careful to preserve the feeling of a place that had existed long before them. “We renovated very carefully so that it would feel as though it had always existed in this way,” Trembley explains. ⁠
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What they have brought into the house follows much the same instinct. In the summer sitting room, the stone desk was once the presbytery kitchen’s washing basin, while a wrought iron holder originally used for church candles was found at a flea market. A Tuareg mat from Mauritania sits alongside a Judd inspired daybed made by carpenter Pascale Théodoly. These objects enter into conversation with centuries of wear already present in the stone and wood, something Trembley regards as an archive in itself. “For me, the house is the artwork,” he says. ⁠
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Read the full story in Ark Journal Volume XVI.⁠
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Words Kana Hasegawa (@kanaeintheair)⁠
Photography @pauline_chardin⁠
Styling @mathiasmentze by @kanaeintheair