Opposite the Tokyo Stock Exchange, a 1920s bank building spent fourteen months being reimagined by Swedish studio Claesson Koivisto Rune into K5, a 20-room hotel built around the Japanese idea of aimai, or blurred boundaries. Rather than walls, furniture, textiles and plants divide the space, layered over the original stone facade, concrete structure and double-height ceilings. Rooms favour dark cedar, hand-dyed indigo curtains and a tatami-inspired wool rug from Kasthall, while three-metre cedar panels slide across the bathrooms. The ground floor and basement do a lot of the talking: Caveman restaurant mixes Nordic and Japanese cooking, Ao bar pours tea-inspired cocktails, and Brooklyn Brewery keeps the beer flowing in the business district of Nihonbashi.
