Tokyo-based company Culture Convenience Club brings together quality of life and technology in Tsutaya Electrics. The well-designed shop displays hi-tech products alongside books, plants and plenty of comfy seats.
Once a nondescript office area with little in the way of shops or restaurants, Marunouchi in Tokyo is undergoing the latest stages of a 20-year transformation into a vibrant retail and financial centre. The next phase will…
LA’s police force is trying to improve its image by creating friendlier buildings, including a glistening new HQ. We also visit an ‘eco’ police station in Victoria, Australia, and look at how forces around the world are…
The Nieuwe Waterweg in Rotterdam is Europe’s main port and the world’s fifth-largest, employing 58,000 people. The Europe Container Terminal (ECT), owned by Hong Kong-based Hutchinson Port Holdings Group, was built here in…
As a global Japanese image, Doraemon aptly combines cuteness and faith in technology. But with the blue robot cat from the future seeming increasingly rooted in the past, there’s a sense that Tokyo’s soft-power brokers want…
Bree Street’s affordable rents and industrial past mean design schools stand next to car mechanics and menswear boutiques alongside panel beaters. The contrasts are beautiful.
Kajima, one of Japan’s largest engineering firms, built the country’s first concrete dam and nuclear reactor. Now it’s at the forefront again, this time in the field of urban biodiversity. We meet the man who sees the…
No sailing royals, an antipathy to ostentation and an unwillingness to take holidays has left Japan’s recreational boat market in the doldrums for years. But the ‘nation of rice farmers’ is finally finding its sea legs:…
Cities don’t just happen; assembly is required. But the inner workings of urban development are often hidden. We meet the makers and architects doing the heavy lifting.
Medica is the world’s largest healthcare trade fair. This year 4,360 companies displayed the latest must-haves for the 21st-century doctor from souped-up ambulances to rather too realistic anatomical models