Close, but not too close.

Overview
HAUN is a co-living startup that builds and runs its own homes around Tokyo. We started working with the founders just before the company launched, on the concept, on developing the architecture with architects, and on the brand.

Question
Share houses took off in Japan more than a decade ago. What comes next?

Challenge
Big cities make comfortable living hard. Keep the rent within reach of young people, and the space usually shrinks. Share houses, which boomed from around 2010, found one balance. Co-living, born in Europe as a kind of subscription that lets you move between homes, found another, with new problems of its own.

Approach
We interviewed people in the target age group, and people about five years younger who would soon become the core audience. What they told us went beyond our hypotheses: comfort beat intensity.

So we defined comfort, and built everything on three ideas: the right distance, natural texture and considerate design. To test the concept, several architects made sketches and models. The practical ones and the ambitious ones pointed the same way. That was our answer.

From there came the name, brand principles, identity, a brand handbook, an architectural design competition and the website.

Outcome
Living close to people, at a comfortable distance. A realistic new way to live together in Japan.