The Nihonbashi area is a somewhat dull section on the eastern side of Tokyo, filled with anonymous warehouses and bland corporate and banking firms. Tokyo's creative minds and businesses have all too often concentrated in other desirable areas of the city, including Aoyama, Azabu and Roppongi. Recently, however, Nihonbashi has begun to undergo revitalization, attracting a more artistic community to the area.

This impetus comes not from any local government initiative but from forward-thinking architects and the private developers with whom they work. Foremost amongst the architects helping revitalize the area is Masataka Baba, who heads the Open A team which is itself located in Nihonbashi, moving from Nakameguro last November.

Re-Know (a play on the word renovation) is a 40-year-old warehouse and office space in Higashi-Nihonbashi which has been transformed into a stylish housing and office complex, aimed at appealing to small businesses and the increasing number of freelance creators who work from home. Care was taken to revitalize the building for the 21st century, renovating it to fit the needs of this new clientele while keeping as much as possible of the building's original character.

One of the visual themes is the contrast between the original grey concrete of areas where it is left exposed and where it is painted white. This is done in varying degrees throughout the building to add interest and variation - in some places only the walls are white, while in others the floors and ceiling are also painted over. "The biggest dilemma," said Baba "was deciding what to keep intact and what to renovate - and what to paint and what not to paint." Baba's solution gives each floor its own individual character, often incorporating that floor's own special attributes into the design where possible.

So far, about seventy percent of Re-Know has been reserved ahead of opening, and the architect's desire that the rooms in the building be filled by creative people looks set to be fulfilled. Those who have committed to renting a space here include a magazine office and photographer's studio sharing the second floor, a furniture showroom in the converted parking lot in the basement and a property developer on the first floor. Here the building's original brick facade, which Baba kept intact, sports huge glass windows along the front. Against the dull backdrop of the surrounding buildings, Baba says, " I want the glass and clean white surfaces to stand out and dazzle to show there is a new image for the area."

The most interesting aspect of the overall design is perhaps the way in which the third, fourth and fifth floors have been split into separate units. The apartment entrances on these floors are accessed by a shared corridor and are treated to allow varying levels of privacy or openness, according to the user's needs. The White Room apartments on the fifth floor are covered by white-painted concrete walls, those on the fourth floor are constructed of semi-transparent glass blocks, and the walls of the Glass Room apartments consist of long transparent glass panels.

While it is expected that shops, showrooms, or other businesses open to the public would take advantage of the open-front Glass Room apartments to lure in customers (and sure enough, so far a graphic designer and a hair salon have snapped up these spaces) and private residents would choose the closed-off walls, the free use of curtains or drapes could easily transform even the most open of apartments, providing privacy when needed. Even so, "it is the Glass Room apartments that have been the slowest to fill" Baba explains. "I think Japanese are still not used to this kind of freedom and don't know what to do with it."

Another feature of the Glass Room apartments is the way in which this private/public duality is explored as you enter further into the room. The first area inside the glass walls is slightly less public than the corridor outside, then there is a raised kitchen area with sink and toilet/bathroom, which could be conceived as a neutral space. Beyond that is a walled-off private area.

The divisions are adaptable - again, the occupant could choose to hang a blind or curtain in front of the kitchen area to keep it private or, alternatively, leave it open as an extension of the public space at the front. In this way, open A manages to create interesting and flexible living/working spaces for those Tokyoites whose division between the two is increasingly fluid.