In the 1866 book Club Life in London, the author John Timbs states, “The Club in the general acceptation of the term, may be regarded as one of the earliest offshoots of man's habitual gregariousness and social inclination.” The gentlemen’s club, which emerged in 17th-century Britain, was conceptualised as a private, members-only ‘second home’ for men of the aristocracy seeking an escape from domestic family life. Functioning as an alternative and competing space to residential architecture, the clubhouse often accommodated constituent spaces such as dining halls, a library, entertainment rooms, game rooms, bedrooms and a study, fostering a distinct form of homosocial domesticity, where members with shared social, political or intellectual interests could interact. This notion of retreating to an almost subverted ‘home away from home’ was carried eastward through colonial expansion, where it interacted with existing cultural counterparts. In Japan, for instance, the kurabuhausu is a cultural space often associated with sport. Unlike gentlemen’s clubs, it centres around activities and business networking, emphasising hospitality rather than purely social or intellectual gatherings.

In a similar vein but playfully trodding the public-private threshold of the clubhouse as a typology, the Tokyo Clubhouse is a refurbished apartment created by the Japanese architecture practice Tan Yamanouchi & AWGL, tailored for a single man in his early thirties. The residential design re-appropriates the colonial ideas behind the clubhouse typology to accommodate the unique mutual autonomy practised in the public spaces of Tokyo. This is evident in the city's long-standing kissaten culture, where public architectures like cafes provide a peaceful setting for individuals to read or work, in contrast to more social, bustling hubs. The growth of hitori— an individual engaging in an activity alone—has led to the development of spaces like solo-dining restaurants, capsule hotels and one-person karaoke booths, which allow for solitary experiences within the shared urban environment, imparting a semi-public quality to spaces that are typologically and typically public.

Located near the Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden in central Tokyo, the apartment reflects the owner's lifestyle, where friends and acquaintances regularly visit, regardless of the owner's presence, echoing the blurred public-private binary seen in the immediate context of the National Garden as well as the city at large. Occupying the entire floor, the renovation of the condominium involves the reconfiguration of two existing units to form a single 93 sq.m. apartment. The two entrances—one leading to the client’s sleeping area and the other to the apartment’s semi-public spaces—enhance the flexibility of the space, making it not only minimal in outlook but also inherently social in its being.

Within this open-plan layout, the semi-private and semi-public areas are segregated by a staggered ceiling that descends low enough to function as an upended wall. With a minimum height of 1.32 metres, the stepped ceiling provides recessed, niche-like space for furniture like sofas and houseplants. Clad in painted wood wool cement boards, the ceiling is arranged in a 900 mm grid to optimise material usage. The spatial division is further emphasised by the flooring with herringbone brick tiles used in the public areas and reclaimed solid wood boards in the more private sections. The contrast between the stepped ceiling heights and the different floor finishes creates a gradual transition of space within the open-plan design.

A curved wall encloses the kitchen—one of the few walls in the open-plan layout, enhancing the existing kitchen unit through a relatively simple refurbishment with a fresh coat of paint. Adding to an already eclectic mix of textures—brick, painted wood wool and timber across walls and floors—the roughcast finish on the curved kitchen wall introduces yet another layer, perhaps tipping the balance toward visual excess in a wall-less space.

A circular table made from galvanised steel that can accommodate six to eight people, and a Mahjong table further facilitate informal social interactions between groups. A glass shoe closet near the entrance, where a wall once separated the two units, displays the client’s sneaker collection, adding a splash of colour and additional personality to the space.

This emergent typology in housing occupies a liminal space, distinct from the bifurcation between the home and the semi-public nature of the city, and the functional kurabuhausu, settling comfortably in the realm of the semi-private. At its core, it embodies “man's habitual gregariousness and social inclination” while also embracing the Japanese principle of mutual autonomy by providing environments that support moments of hitori alongside communal engagement, simultaneously rendering a refuge from Tokyo's hyper-connected urban life.

Project Details

Name: Tokyo Clubhouse
Location: Tokyo, Japan
Typology: Housing, Renovation of a Residential Apartment
Architect: Tan Yamanouchi & AWGL
Area: 92.84 sq.m.
Year of Completion: 2024