When tasked to re-envision, Tokyo Tokyo, a Filipino-Japanese fast casual restaurant chain with a strong Three-decades long history, the first questions our designers considered was how to make a Fast Casual restaurant more humanistic in its approach to making a customer feel better about themselves before and especially after a meal, and then how could our designers make design moves that are considerate of culture, not just Filipino culture, but also Japanese culture, without having to offend, "Disney-fy" or simplify either culture to find a complete design.
Part of our process was to look into interior formal references of "Pop-Japan" whether it be having to review Mid-Century and International style projects with that Japanese twist, like the famous Hotel Okura, or take cues from non-Japanese films like the 1982 epic, "Blade Runner", or perhaps even review the Japanese detailing of Fusama Screens, or Fusama painting cultures, as well as the planning of Minka Homes. The idea was not to copy any of these references, but find the ways in which a customer or guest may appreciate their forms, their planning methods, lighting methods, or formal styles and see what a combination of these ideas can make a restaurant work the way it needs to work, while creating a space with touches of Japanese-ness but through a Filipino cultural lens.
