This article was taken from the October 2014 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
Tiny homes are trending in architecture -- but in Tokyo, small dwellings have long been part of the street. "Inheritance taxes [in Japan] are so high that children often have to sell half the land to pay them. That's why homes are so tiny now," explains French-born photographer Jérémie Souteyrat. He's documented 54 of the city's most bijou homes for his new book Tokyo No Ie (Homes Of Tokyo). Tokyo proved the perfect subject for Souteyrat's lens. "The average lifetime of a house in Japan is 25 years, because of the Shinto belief in the impermanence of things (wabi-sabi) and because the seismic regulations are always evolving," explains Souteyrat, 35. "Architects here have more opportunities to try new concepts. I love designs that fight against gravity, like 'On the Cherry Blossom' by A.L.X. [ground floor footprint: 8.59m2]," he says. Although "spectacular houses are not always better to live in".
Souteyrat plans on returning to the same locations in 25 years' time, to photograph the next generation of houses; in the meantime, he is shooting a series on the rebuilding of the devastated Fukushima nuclear plant. "To me, small houses are an ideal way of living," he says. "And if design and architecture can bring art and culture to the streets, then that's just perfect." Tokyo No Ie (Le Lézard Noir) is published later this autumn
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
