Adam Nathaniel Furman splashes a Tokyo apartment in pastels

Taste the Rainbow

A pastel pink kitchen with blue tile backsplash and green striped floors

An apartment in Nagatacho, Tokyo, has gotten a hypersaturated candy-colored makeover courtesy of English designer Adam Nathaniel Furman.

A blue countertop emerging from a pink kitchen, with two chairs
The kitchen's baby blue countertops extend to form eating areas, continuing out past a central "block." (Jan Vranovsky)

The 1,700-square-foot, three bed, two bath unit is a sumptuous study in material contrasts that aims to ameliorate some of the mundanity of everyday home life.

A tile-clad bathroom with a pink toilet
The bathrooms, which use floor-to-ceiling tile, would easily stand apart from the rest of the apartment if not for the pink fixtures. (Jan Vranovsky)

Bright pops of yellow from the faucet and towel rack in each bathroom add a splash of intensity to these more subdued spaces. (Jan Vranovsky)

The unit’s programming is organized around its central spaces, the living room and kitchen, and color is used to delineate each element. Pastel pink cabinets in the kitchen sit alongside a hand-finished spruce wall divider, as baby-blue countertops meet a herringbone backsplash rendered in iridescent turquoise tiles. Ceramics that mimic the colors found throughout the space line the living room’s white shelves, providing pops of vibrancy and complexity even in the more “restrained” spaces.

A pink hallway with yellow doors
The doorways throughout the apartment are inlaid with an arched motif, in reference to traditional doorways. (Jan Vranovsky)

That interplay between opposing colors and materials was intended to maximize the difference between each. The hand-worked wooden details and furniture are in intentional contrast to the laser-cut inlaid doors and plastic marble. Carpet beside vinyl, and colored, textured wallpaper that abuts white, matte plastic walls.

A pink kitchen with a blue backsplash
The split-tone kitchen takes the saturation found elsewhere in the apartment to the extreme.(Jan Vranovsky)

A bedroom with orange bed and blue walls
One of the bedrooms, complete with orange bed frame. (Jan Vranovsky)

Although color is plentiful, plenty of consideration went into making sure the home was livable and not a total sensory overload. The colored portion of each wall ends abruptly at a standard height of four feet up, where it meets a more standard white wall. And, although different hues are easily found throughout, they’re kept mostly muted apart from a vibrant yellow splashed on a few doorways, and the Vitra faucets and accompanying towel racks.

A dining room with pink carpeting and wooden chairs
The communal living area provides a space for the family to gather, eat, and relax. (Jan Vranovsky)