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For Japanese artist and architect Zajirogh and his family, living small isn’t about compromise, it’s about living closely, creatively and together. In this 57sqm/613sqft home, designed with the help of Yoshitaka Suzuki and shared with his wife and three children, you can hear laughter from the bath, conversations in the kitchen, and kids playing upstairs. The main living space opens directly to the sky, doubling as both a family living room and a place for Zajirogh’s large-scale paintings. A piano, hanging lights, plants and five bold colours drawn from his own art give the space its playful character. Everyday practicality shapes the home too, kitchen shelves sized to their favourite containers, a sliding door that hides or reveals storage, and a stair nook turned trolley shelf. Upstairs, the hard-working mezzanine holds a small study, a playroom and a sleeping loft for the kids, accessed by a DIY shelving ladder. The bathroom by the entrance is even complete with a small window that lets Zajirogh hear family life while he unwinds.

Watch the original apartment tour here ✨ https://youtu.be/4i8WENruig0?si=rNGHbCpQYZz8ahni

00:00-01:13 Introduction
01:13-03:21 Entrance
03:21-06:54 Living Room
06:54-09:25 Kitchen
09:25-11:21 Bathroom
11:21-12:53 Study
12:53-14:43 Bedroom
14:43-15:53 Balcony
15:53-16:39 Conclusion

See how this family lives small https://www.nevertoosmall.com/post/living-under-an-open-roof-family-life-in-a-compact-tokyo-home

#smallapartment #architecture #interiordesign

How I Live Small Ep.12
Project Name: Open Sky House
Architect: Yoshitaka Suzuki
https://www.ysaa.co/
Owner: Zajirogh
https://zajirogh.wixsite.com/zajirogh

Produced by New Mac Video Agency
Creator: Colin Chee
Producer: Lindsay Barnard
Director: & Cinematographer: Nam Tran
Editor: Raian Best
Music: Artlist.io
Up and Over & Daida by Yoav Shlomov
zaq2 by MEOD, Matcha Latte by Aves
Sensual Hold Muzak - No Melody by Lance Conrad
Ephemeralda in the Mood by Simon Berggren
September by Dor Ben Lulu

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Transcript
00:07The house is so small that I can feel what's going on. My wife and my kid are talking and
00:14laughing. You can always feel it and that is a very good thing. This place is so small for
00:23five people but in the future me and my wife gonna live here and this is a good place to
00:29live with for two people. Also I'm enjoying this place. We can always feel nature just
00:40using your sky. I think this is a very good idea for everywhere in the world.
00:47It's something universal you know. If I were living in New York maybe I would make this house.
01:01My name is Zajiro. I live here with my wife and my three kids. I'm an artist and also an
01:09architect.
01:14So this is the door. It says public school city of New York. We bought this in New York.
01:22Me and my wife we lived at Queens Astoria 18 years ago. Entrance door opens inside. It's good for
01:31security things you know. You can push people out. In Japan usually door opens this way. They have
01:38shoes just inside the entrance. The entrance is so small. When I come in you take off shoes here.
01:48As you're this is Japanese rooms. You can stick these magnetic things. Things you don't want to forget.
01:57My kids love to rip this. Like every day. You can open here and there's a storage that you don't
02:06want to show
02:06to people. I put these things for something for outside you put it here. Before you go out you have
02:14to wear your coat. This is my grandfather bought this like 30 years ago. After we moved here we need
02:23a mirror to see
02:26your you know whole body. I first filmed it but it didn't it doesn't look good so I add this.
02:36This is where my shoes. This is where my family's shoes and we want to show it. A lot of
02:42Japanese
02:43architects try to hide shoes or the wearing showing things are more decorative. I designed
02:54classroom just right next to entrance and I have a window here. When I designed it I thought it is
03:03useful
03:04to wash dirty kids coming out from park. But once I designed this I found that I can feel what's
03:13going
03:14on in this living room. It's really nice to take your time in your bathtub. This place is the living
03:24room
03:24with no roof. This is outside you have to put things inside so tv and piano and things that we
03:34have to make inside is in here. I put the piano because the tv piano and sofa if you have
03:43these three
03:43things you can make the place as a living room. So you need a piano you always need a piano
03:49for a living
03:50room. Nobody plays piano now. My wife she's an interior designer and she decides what to put in here.
04:01If somebody try to give me a ball I have to talk to her. Is this okay?
04:09She's so strict about what you should use or not.
04:17You don't have the pockets.
04:19I got a shed for aIIстановamine and mig securing, but it's a great thing called
04:29It looks so cute.
04:35The Christmas tree is very important.
04:41It's been a year and a year.
04:45It's been a lot of different things.
04:50At first, I wanted to put green here.
04:54I wanted to lower the bar here, but if you're here, it's a bit of邪魔, so it's just this bar.
05:24All my work, I could make it in my small study room, but some of the big art, I made
05:32those paintings in this place because we have a very tall height.
05:40That one, that one is Hikaru Oozora, means brightening big sky, and my son bright it, and it fits to
05:51this room.
05:54This is chair made of paper, that was the original product.
05:59It starts breaking, so I add this collage, so that it looks better.
06:07When snow comes, you have to move everything out of here.
06:13We don't want to divide this place as a two place, like, you know, we have this window here so
06:20that we can close it.
06:22This is inside and this is outside, but we wanted this space as a same place, so we have same
06:29color.
06:30We want to use a lot of colors because my art is using a lot of colors.
06:34The painter surprised that when we built this house, is there five colors?
06:43This is our kitchen dining room.
06:47These chairs, we bought this, like, every baby comes out.
06:53We bought one, this, so we have three of these chairs.
06:56We bought one, this is the light.
07:05It's a light that's a light.
07:08It's a strange shape.
07:10It's a form that's a little bit.
07:12I bought three of these three.
07:14I bought one.
07:15This is a door that's only one.
07:18This is the one that I used to buy.
07:30This is the one that I used to buy.
07:33This is the one that I bought.
07:33This is the one that I bought.
07:35This is the one that I bought.
07:39If you buy this, I don't want to see it.
07:41This is the one that I bought.
07:44As you can see, I'm going to use this أنت for my kitchen.
07:47There are a lot of lights on.
07:53This is a little easier to use.
07:55This is the one that I want to use so they don't want it.
08:01It's斜め.
08:04It's light that it's light.
08:07It's light that it is light that it can always use.
08:08I use this to all of the windows.
08:13What is it? What did I forget?
08:16It's not a door.
08:19It's a small part of the wall.
08:21I made a door on the other side of the wall.
08:26It was open to the wall.
08:29The back of the wall is open and I put a wagon in the back of the wall.
08:39He's a really good designer about these things.
09:04You can use it in the morning, so you can use it here.
09:11You can use it here.
09:18I wanted to put a mirror in the bathroom.
09:22I thought it would be a bit difficult to make it.
09:27So I put it in a separate bathroom.
09:33I think every small house does that.
09:36Under the stairs, toilet.
09:43So this is room for changing before the bathroom.
09:50These are the changes for the family.
09:54What we do is just take a bath and take a seat
09:57or talk to people like this.
10:01We do have a curtain here.
10:03So if you really want to care about this,
10:06you just do it like this.
10:09Sometimes my children have to take a bath
10:11when party is going on.
10:14We use this, but that's the only time.
10:17You take a bath in Japan, you know, you take a long time.
10:22And sometimes, you know, mother and children go to a bath together
10:28and spend a long time here.
10:31So this place is like somewhere you could relax for a long time in Japan.
10:44So this is the door of this toilet in the second floor.
10:50So it works like this.
10:51But it also can separate the first floor and the second floor.
11:05This is the small study for me.
11:08And I use this for my work.
11:13That's a bucket.
11:15You can put beer inside.
11:20You have a door in the back side.
11:22So you can sit like this, you know.
11:25This is a bedroom.
11:27I mean, we sleep here.
11:28We don't have a bed.
11:29We use futon here.
11:33Oh, and these are the table.
11:41So you can use your room wider.
11:45But you can also use this table when they want to do something.
11:51Do some homework, study.
11:56These are DIY.
11:58I made it.
11:59This is like playroom.
12:01I mean, they play video games and stuff in here.
12:06This is like IKEA's light.
12:09I like it.
12:09It looks like my house.
12:11This is the green space.
12:13I paint it because I pour water everywhere in here.
12:19So this is a very good place for green.
12:21We made this shelf with my son.
12:25We need a lot of shelf.
12:29So this is the kids place.
12:31So we have three kids.
12:32The children have to go up to sleep because their bed bed.
12:37I mean, their sleeping place is just here.
12:40They have to go up.
12:43Originally, we had a ladder here.
12:46But when we make this shelf, we made it as a ladder.
12:51So you can go up like this.
12:53So this is shelf and ladder.
13:02I had an idea that the place is so small.
13:06We don't want to ladder itself.
13:08Ladder and shelf makes space really compact.
13:13And that's why we made it.
13:18I made this step so that I can go up from here.
13:23Like this.
13:29So this is how I go up.
13:32Just a storage.
13:38I'm left-handed, but I use right-hand guitar.
13:47You can play somebody's guitar anywhere.
13:51I mean, if you go to a bar, if there's a guitar, you can play it.
13:53But if you can only play left-handed guitar,
13:57you can just play it in your house.
13:59But it's a good way.
14:18We used to have, you know,
14:22studio, I mean desk here.
14:24But we moved it.
14:25We're thinking how to use this place now.
14:29Because I have a lot of artwork like this.
14:32So maybe I can put artworks here.
14:35Or maybe we can book the shelf here.
14:40I'm opening this.
14:44How do you call this?
14:46Top.
14:47Vinyl top.
14:49This one is the heaviest one I have used.
14:52Sometimes you have to open.
14:55When people came around,
14:58or when you do the barbecue in fast-fura,
15:02this is like version 5.4.
15:07It took like three years or something to complete.
15:14Now my kids are really getting bigger.
15:19You know, everybody has a kid,
15:21and they try to make their kid's room and everything.
15:25I think that's too big for them.
15:27I think I'm going to live with my wife
15:30for like 30 or 40 years.
15:33The time with your kid is not so long.
15:41When I designed this house,
15:42that was my part of this concept.
15:45This house.
15:46See you soon.
15:49I'm back and see you soon.
15:52So please visit this house.
15:53Thank you as soon as possible.
15:54See you soon.
15:55See you soon.
15:56Bye.
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