Completion Date: December 2009 Program: A 1,345-square-foot salon in the basement of a commercial building in Tokyo's trendy Daikanyama neighborhood. Design concept and solution: Yamaguchi wanted to take a basic, stripped-down space that had seen a lot of wear from previous tenants and make it over without covering up the age and texture of the room. He preserved the open-plan layout--a simple rectangle with exposed wood beams and skylights--and painted the pocked concrete-block walls white. On the rough concrete floor, he filled in depressions with mortar, creating amorphous white shapes recalling landmasses--a "time map" highlighting the history of the space.
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