Anatomy of a Tokyo hotel room

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Brandon Donnelly

9mo

Enjoying your Tokyo posts, Brandon! My wife and I had the priviledge of touring Japan for 2.5 weeks in 2018, and came away with a lot of amazement, appreciation... and perhaps wonderment about why things are the way they are there. Their unique process and thought structure may likely have been due to them being relatively untouched by european colonialism, and also going through a period of isolationism. The low furniture - I feel that it perhaps started from the custom of sitting/laying on the floor for most domestic activities. Transitioning into modern living though, I felt that it may have also started to create the sense of open-ness as things were generally impeding less into the space... which works well with the small size of most homes. Also allowing for a more compressed ceiling height. Of course, you are likely taller than most people there so you will certainly feel it more, but the contrast from North American or European standards is noticable. And the toilets? We could not see how we could live a life knowing that such amenties exist... so we had to get one for our house. And we love it!! And then I saw this South Park episode... and laughed, and laughed. And still love our purchase! haha https://youtu.be/uRL4l2GOqXk?si=RzU8IrEbZjJADBYX

Space comes at a premium in Tokyo. So today, let's take a look at our hotel room, including some of its dimensions. The smallest room in our hotel is 12 m2 (~129 ft2). But we sprung for the 20 m2 (~215 ft2) room given that we have two big ski/snowboard bags with us.

When you walk into our room, there is a foyer where you naturally remove your outside shoes and put on your inside shoes. There's also a continuous hook for hanging coats, which seems to be a common detail throughout Tokyo. This area measures 1060mm (3'5") wide by 2119mm (6'11") deep and has a clear height of 2170mm (7'1").

You then step up to the main room area, which has tatami flooring throughout. It's obvious that you shouldn't cross this threshold with your outside shoes on. Here the clear height compresses down to 2069mm (6'9") because of the raised floor and because of some HVAC above. I wonder if there are any services running under the floor. Presumably they made use of the space.

The toilet/shower room is 1886mm (6'2") wide by 1235mm (4'0") deep and has the same ceiling height as above. As expected, the toilet is very fancy, it has a heated seat, and it will do whatever it takes to ensure that you leave this compact room with a tidy bum. The control pad is also fairly intuitive to use.

The main living/sleeping area of the room is 2783mm (9'1") wide by 3351mm (10'11") deep, which is roughly the size of a Toronto apartment bedroom. This room also has a TV, desk area, and the bathroom sink. The ceiling height opens up to 2395mm (7'10") in this area.

It's worth highlighting that the desk height is just under 24" and the vanity countertop height is about 26". These are very low compared to Western standards and I can certainly feel it in my back.

In my view, it's this vertical dimension which represents the biggest design difference compared to what I'm accustomed to. Surfaces are low and the ceiling heights are compressed. Because otherwise, I've stayed in even smaller rooms in Paris and in other places. It's very comfortable and we would certainly stay here again.