MUJI Furnishes 100-Year-Old House And Lists It On Airbnb As Idle Homestay
Image via Airbnb Japan / PR TIMES
A respite from the maximalist Barbie Dreamhouses you’ve been seeing lately, MUJI has unveiled a charmingly pared-back home that will help you appreciate the bare essentials. The best part? You can spend the night in it.
Opened by Japan’s renowned “no-brand” lifestyle retailer in conjunction with Airbnb, the new MUJI Base Kamogawa is a remodeled 100-year-old traditional Japanese house purposefully kept frills-free for a more authentic experience of living in the storied ancient city.
Image via Airbnb Japan / PR TIMES
Inside, the renovated home is delicately filled with MUJI’s simple and functional items, including its furniture, bedding, and air diffusers, which blend into the wooden and paper accents of the interior.
Image via Airbnb Japan / PR TIMES
Image via Airbnb Japan / PR TIMES
Image via Airbnb Japan / PR TIMES
For nourishment, guests can tuck into seasonal local meals while they take in the area’s natural beauty outside. The abode is situated in the rural Nagasa area of Kamogawa City, Chiba Prefecture—avoiding the busy humdrum of Tokyo a 90-minute drive away.
Image via Airbnb Japan / PR TIMES
Image via Airbnb Japan / PR TIMES
The amenities are all MUJI too, of course.
Image via Airbnb Japan / PR TIMES
Image via Airbnb Japan / PR TIMES
The homestay is the first of the brand’s MUJI Base series, which sets out to immerse guests in a meaningful, nomadic, and sustainable lifestyle enriched with culture by overhauling unused properties and heritage structures.
Image via Airbnb Japan / PR TIMES
Image via Airbnb Japan / PR TIMES
Image via Airbnb Japan / PR TIMES
In August, the company plans to add pastoral activities to the stay’s itinerary.
These will include the harvesting of Chiba melons, which have a growth rate of only one melon per nursery, from a farm that only uses organic fertilizers. In addition, guests could try their hand at feeding, brushing, and milking cows at a ranch that lets its animals roam free—a rarity in Japan—a nod to Chiba being the “birthplace of dairy farming” in the country.
Image via Ryohin Keikaku / PR TIMES
Image via Ryohin Keikaku / PR TIMES
Image via Airbnb Japan / PR TIMES
MUJI Base Kamogawa will open its doors on August 1, and can be rented on Airbnb for ¥20,000 (US$142) per night. Guests will need to book at least two nights to be eligible to stay.
Image via Airbnb Japan / PR TIMES
Image via Airbnb Japan / PR TIMES
Image via Airbnb Japan / PR TIMES
[via Highsnobiety and Ryohin Keikaku / PR TIMES, images via various sources]
