Perpetual Renewal

Tokyo’s endless churn of demolition and rebuilding comes with a noticeable trend—houses are shrinking. The city’s obsession with perpetual renewal means that many homes barely make it past 30 years before being torn down, their remains carted away in mini dump trucks. But what replaces them is often even smaller than before. Rising land prices, stricter building regulations, and an increasing demand for housing have led to the rise of kyosho jutaku—ultra-compact homes squeezed into impossibly tiny plots. What was once a modest family house is now a narrow, vertical dwelling, often just a few metres wide, designed to maximise every square centimetre. Bedrooms are little more than sleeping pods, storage is a luxury, and living spaces blur into corridors.