The Tokyo Toilet Project

In 2020, the Nippon Foundation launched the Tokyo Toilet project: sixteen public restrooms across Shibuya, each designed by a leading architect — Tadao Ando, Shigeru Ban, Kengo Kuma, and others. The brief was simple and ambitious. Make something people would actually want to use.

The results are extraordinary. And they raise a question we think about often: what happens when you treat invisible infrastructure as a design problem worth solving?

Design for everyone

Public toilets are the most democratic space in any city. They must work for children, elderly people, wheelchair users, and tourists who cannot read the signage. The Tokyo Toilet project did not sacrifice function for form — it insisted on both.

The transparent walls of Shigeru Ban's design address safety concerns while dissolving stigma. Tadao Ando's circular pavilion uses clean geometry to create calm. Each solution is specific to its neighbourhood.

The same logic applies everywhere design touches people. Accessibility is not a checkbox. It is the foundation. If someone cannot use something comfortably, the aesthetics do not matter.

Craft in unexpected places

Before Perfect Days brought Hirayama's toilet-cleaning routine to cinemas worldwide, the Tokyo Toilet project was already arguing the same thing: these spaces deserve respect.

When a city invests care in what is usually hidden, it signals something larger. Details matter. The everyday is not beneath design — it is where design proves itself.

Lessons for small brands

You may not be commissioning Tadao Ando. But you can ask the same questions:

• Does this feel considered, even in the parts nobody notices?
• Would someone actually want to spend time here?
• Is it clear, clean, and honest about what it is?

A shop counter, a waiting room, a queue at checkout — these are infrastructure too. They should work beautifully.

The Tokyo Toilet project will outlast trends because it solved a real problem with real craft. That is the standard we hold ourselves to, even at a different scale.