Designers Nigo and Masamichi Katayama have completed a new design-led convenience store in Tokyo with the opening of Famima Park Azabudai. Located in Azabudai, an area of rolling hills and new luxury urban developments, the project rethinks a familiar retail typology through architectural clarity, material restraint and cultural reference. The store positions everyday retail as a form of public design.
The building sits on a subway-adjacent corner as a sleek volume with rounded edges. A clean glass facade meets smooth gray concrete walls, while a lush rooftop extends the surrounding park landscape vertically. The structure moves away from standard convenience store branding and instead reads as a small-scale public building embedded in its context.
Nigo, in his role as FamilyMartโs creative director, reworked the brandโs visual identity for the project. The official Famima mascot โ a smiley face and star derived from FamilyMartโs original โsun and starโ logo โ appears throughout, alongside a deconstructed letter โFโ that crowns the building. The sculptural โFโ extends onto the rooftop, where it functions as seating adjacent to โFamima Stand,โ a counter for coffee, tea and food service.
Inside, the spatial strategy prioritizes discovery. Shelving is organized into curated zones such as โfunโ for water and โinner beautyโ for healthy snacks, shifting product display toward lifestyle curation. Merchandise includes mascot plushies, T-shirts and tote bags featuring Nigoโs new graphics. Staff uniforms in striped green and blue with baseball caps further align the human element with the overall design language.
โThis all started with a simple idea. Wouldnโt it be great if convenience stores carried things like this? Since then, Iโve had countless meetings with the FamilyMart team,โ Nigo said of the project. โI hope this next-generation convenience store will give people in Japan โ and around the world โ the opportunity to experience Japanese culture and lifestyle firsthand.โ
Architecture and Spatial Intent
The interior was designed by Masamichi Katayamaโs agency Wonderwall, which has collaborated with Nigo on projects including a Louis Vuitton menโs runway show, Human Made and Not a Hotel. โRather than simply creating a place people stop by because itโs convenient, we have refined every aspect of the store to make it a destination people genuinely want to visit,โ Katayama said. The approach treats circulation, lighting and materiality with the same rigor applied to cultural or hospitality projects.
Famima Park Azabudai positions convenience retail within a broader conversation about urban design and place-making. By integrating landscape, sculpture and curated interiors, the project challenges the transactional nature of the format. It suggests a future where everyday infrastructure can also operate as design-led architecture โ accessible, culturally specific, and responsive to the density and aesthetics of contemporary Tokyo.
Image Courtesy: WWD
