Casa Nano 2.0

Casa Wabi’s Architectural Overlap

This newly minted Casa Nano replaces the art residency’s original Japanese location in favor of a cedar and concrete home redesigned with Studio Wasabi Architecture. The two-story, gabled roof structure provides space for inspiration in its open-concept remodel featuring a svelte, floating staircase and elevated shelving around its periphery.

Casa Wabi visionary Bosco Sodi’s new home doubles as the latest location of his Tokyo artist residency, Casa Nano. Set in the Sendagi district, the 1950s-era property was revamped to give the residency more space and create a home for Sodi and his interior designer wife, Lucia Corredor. The original exterior remains, its modest façade reworked, and its typhoon-resistant sliding window system retained.

The intricate interior transformation relies on the home’s original cedar beams, repurposed to create an open-plan kitchen and workspace, with a space-saving suspended steel staircase and wraparound shelving overhead. Furnishings (a favorite table, a Noguchi lamp) were brought from Casa Nano’s previous location. Classic paper sliding doors, overlaid with glass, divide rooms, and the maximized upper level sleeps five, with a bright living area, reading nook, bunkroom and outdoor terrace reachable by ladder.

This vacation home rental in Tokyo comes to us as part of a collaboration with Fundación Casa Wabi. Read more about Casa Nano 2.0 here.

AROUND

Toyko’s Sendagi district is a primarily residential part of the city, a neighborhood within the greater Yanesen district, where the old shitamachi spirit is said to linger. Shitamachi generally refers to the area southeast of the Imperial Palace and describes a part of town that thrived in the Edo period, giving visitors an authentic taste of Tokyo’s past. Many Buddhist temples occupy the neighborhood, but in recent years, art galleries and ateliers have moved in. There’s also a popular outdoor shopping street, Yanaka Ginza, where traditional buildings house street food stations, pottery shops and shrines. The Yanaka Ginza is most famous, though, for its felines. Cats, both real and ceramic, are abundant in the tightly packed streets which lead to Yanaka cemetery, famed for its sakura trees, Tokyo’s celebrated cherry blossoms. The Nezu Shrine, a series of vivid red buildings surrounded by lush blooming azaleas, dates from 1705, and is often referred to as Tokyo’s most beautiful Shinto shrine. One of Tokyo’s original wooden houses is in the neighborhood and open to visitors. The Old Yasuda house was built traditionally in 1919, zigzagging across its narrow lot and rising two stories. Also worth a visit, the senbei shop Kikumi Senbei Sohonten was established in 1875. Discover an Edo-era candy craft and performance art tradition called Ame-zaiku Yoshihara at an atelier of the same name in the area, where artists create cute figures from mizu-ame gum on demand. The performance artist/candy-makers were once a fixture at festivals and are today part of a return to Tokyo’s classic traditional arts.

LOCATION

Sendagi, Tokyo, Japan. Nearest airport: Tokyo Narita (approximately 40 miles)

BEST TIME TO VISIT: March to May, and September to November