Kitchen as Everyday Resistance

Located in Shimokitazawa, Tokyo, this project explores the kitchen as a site of subtle resistance against the commodification of everyday life. On a triangular site between a bustling commercial district and a quiet residential area, the design repurposes a sloped space and alleyway into communal kitchens, dining halls, and food markets. These spaces reconnect people through shared processes of cooking, eating, and processing local ingredients.

The project critiques capitalist urban spectacle by highlighting the overlooked rhythms of domestic life. Architectural elements like the stove, sink, and chimney become symbols of warmth, unity, and social infrastructure, transforming the atmosphere of public space. By embedding food-processing facilities into diverse building types, the design softens the rigid structures of commodity society and reclaims the street as a lived, communal space.

Rather than viewing urban life as spectacle, the project proposes a gentler, slower way of living— rooted in food, home, and shared rituals. Through this lens, the kitchen becomes a quiet yet powerful agent of spatial and social renewal.

Typology: Adaptive reuse, kitchen
Program: Kitchen, communal dining hall, food market, retail alley, balcony transformation
Scale: 1450 square meters (site area)
Material: Concrete, polycarbonate, steel