Plants donated by local residents cover undulating facade of SOIL Nihonbashi

Rust-red panels of corrugated steel curve around this narrow 14-room hotel in central Tokyo, designed by Kiyoaki Takeda Architects and Staple Studio to reflect the neighbourhood's longstanding culture of "alleyway gardening".

SOIL Nihonbashi rises nine storeys above the tight-knit backstreets of Nihonbashi, Tokyo's Edo-era commercial quarter, in which skyscrapers flank traditional eateries and centuries-old speciality shops dedicated to lacquerware, toothpicks and rice crackers.

The hotel's distinctive, undulating facade was designed to recall the many planters that crowd sidewalks and windowsills across the neighbourhood, where locals have learned to make do without actual gardens.

"The red tone of the facade echoes the terracotta planters and clay-rich soil commonly seen throughout the area, referencing the local alleyway gardening culture where plants line building fronts and become part of everyday life," architect Kiyoaki Takeda told Dezeen.

During a series of research walks throughout the neighbourhood, Takeda and Staple Studio – the design team of Japanese developer Staple – discovered that these impromptu gardens were born from a thriving, generations-long culture of sharing plant cuttings among neighbours.

At SOIL Nihonbashi, this practice is reflected not just metaphorically but also literally, as many of the plants that populate the corrugated metal facade were actually propagated by local residents and gifted to the hotel.

That means many of these orchids, jade plants and lady palms are descendants of greenery that has lived in the area for years or even decades.

"Hotels often feel detached from their surroundings, especially for locals, who rarely have a reason to stay," Takeda said. "But in Nihonbashi, we found a hint of connection in the practice of kubu-wake – sharing plants by division."

"In this way, plants go beyond decoration; they invite conversation and build community," he added. "If the hotel becomes a shared, three-dimensional alleyway garden, people might start asking: 'are you watering my plant' or 'how's my baby doing?'"

SOIL Nihonbashi's steel-frame structure allowed Takeda to create generous sliding windows, which frame views of the verdant exterior and open up completely to make the compact rooms feel like they extend outside.

At street level, a tiled bench wraps around the hotel to create an informal gathering space. This allows guests and locals to spill out for drinks and slices from Pizza Tane, the sourdough pizzeria that occupies most of the ground floor alongside a small reception.

The same terracotta tiles used for the bench also blanket large portions of the interiors designed by Staple Studio, among them the pizzeria's bar counter, the reception desk and built-in platform beds in the 14 guest rooms.

Other al fresco materials that have found their way indoors include Itoigawa stone and water-smoothed pebbles, repurposed to serve as door knobs and wall hooks.

Warm brick, soil and terracotta shades permeate the guest rooms, drenching joinery and upholstery in tones that hearken back to the area's gardening culture.

Alongside the built-in furniture, Staple Design teamed up with emerging studios to create several custom pieces for the hotel.

Among them are ombre washi paper lamps, a hammock-style sling sofa by snowboard maker Shinji Matsukawa, and plant pots crafted from recycled Shigaraki stoneware and coffee grounds.

From the hotel's top floor, a small staircase leads up to a rooftop garden, encircled by planters used to grow herbs for the pizzeria alongside propagated plants donated by neighbours.

SOIL is far from Staple's first opening in Nihonbashi. In fact, the company's co-working space, Parklet Bakery, Timsum wine bar, and Claesson Koivisto Rune-designed K5 hotel are all within a 10-minute stroll of each other.

"When we started this seven years ago, not many people even thought of moving to the eastern side of Nihonbashi," said Staple founder Yuta Oka. "This was like abandoned, forgotten, old Tokyo."

"Japan is full of those places, because we're depopulating, and there are so many neighbourhoods that need a new purpose," he added. "Finding those places, resuscitating them, and making them discoverable for the world is what we love."

Staple has followed a similar approach in other "forgotten" areas of Japan like Okayama, Setoda and Hakodate, which were once popular with domestic tourists in the 1960s and 70s.

No matter the location, the process invariably starts with a hotel.

"Fighting depopulation, as a Japanese citizen, I feel that's a big theme that we need to tackle," Oka said. "And we think hotels are always a very useful way to bring in a new mix of demand and a new mix of people if we pay respect towards locals."

For the self-proclaimed "soft developer", this involves quizzing communities about what they actually need, whether it's a bakery or a workspace.

Staple then spreads these amenities across a walkable neighbourhood, rather than concentrating them all in one complex, to encourage greater enmeshment between longtime locals, tourists and new residents like the company's own staff.

"We think that every project needs to be citizens first," Oka said. "If you create a resort or a hotel that's run in a traditional manner, the guests are the king, and every service needs to have the guests as their utmost priority."

"But we think that the culturally sensitive traveller would rather like to see happy locals living happily as they are on a daily basis."

Other recent openings in Nihonbashi that hope to accommodate the area's growing tourist presence include Kooo Architects' Hotel Rakuragu with its distinctive cut-out balconies.

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