Tokyo concept apartment building offers extremely tiny and odd living spaces

Tokyo Lens explores a Tokyo building with incredibly tiny and odd studio apartments—think toilets beside beds—but a degree of clever optimization you don't get with, say, New York City's hacked up and illegal bedsits. The residents, says Norm Nakamura, sought the place out.

It strikes me as a good example of "tiny house living" that declines in appeal when the fittings aren't brand new anymore and life in the box loses its veneer of freshly-consumed intentionality. In fairness, though, some of these are cool single-occupant rooms for undergrads, assuming there's cheap eating nearby. Bathed in natural light, they're a counterpoint to this more concrete hell now offered in the West.